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FRANCES RIDLEY HAVERGAL, 

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Copyright by 
The American Sunday-School Union, 



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PREFACE. 



Frances Ridley Havebgal was the youngest 
daughter of the Rev. William Henry Havergal, 
of Astley, Worcestershire, England. She was 
born Dec. 14, 1836. At a very early age she 
begaa charitable and missionary labors in 
Worcester, to which city her father moved in 
1845. She taught a Sunday-school class of very 
young children, and the story of this period is 
pleasantly told in one of her books' for chil- 
dren. She was a diligent student and mastered 
five or six languages, including Greek and 
Hebrew, while she was equally skilled in 
musical composition and in needle-work. As 
a solo-singer, her voice possessed a sweet and 
sympathetic quality. She could render on the 
piano or the organ, with great ease and expres- 
sion, the most difficult of Handel's, Mendel- 
sohn's and Beethoven's compositions. Her 
voice, like her pen, was fully consecrated and 
kept for the Master's use. Her health was 
frail, and her hymns and poems were written 
out of the depth of her experience, and often 
of suffering. Miss Havergal died in Swansea, 
Wales, June 3, 1879. 

V 



PREFACE, 

Her last hours well-befitted the close of such 
a life as she lived. 

On Whit Monday morning they thought she 
was departing. Her brother knelt by her, in- 
quiring if he should pray. " Yes," she replied, 
" let it be a sacramental service." She softly 
but emphatically joined in the words, " There- 
fore with angels, &c." After some peaceful 
rest, she whispered, "Frank dear, it is not the 
performance of the rite, no safety in that; but 
it is obedience to His command and as a re- 
membrance of His dying love." 

One of her doctors leaving her said : 

" Good-by, I shall not see you again." " Then 
do you really think I am going ?" " Yes." " To- 
day ?" " Probably," " Beautiful, too good to be 
true!" she replied. Soon after looking up 
smiling, she said. "Splendid to be so near the 
gates of heaven !" Later, after a convulsive 
sickness she folded her hands on her breast : 
"There, now it is all over! Blessed Rest!" 
Looking up steadfastly as though she saw the 
Lord, her face reflected a glorious radiance ; 
and she tried to sing with one high sweet 
note " He—" her voice faltered, and as her 
brother prayed, she passed away "^satisfied, 
glorified, within the palace of her King!" 

vi 



NOTE. 

**AwAKE, O north wind, and come, thou 
south; blow upon my garden, that the 
spices thereof may flow out " in blossoms of 
" love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentle- 
ness, goodness, faith, meekness, temper- 
ance." Possessing a more subtle essence 
than the fairest flowers of earth, which bud 
and bloom and fade and die, these blossoms 
are ever sweet and fresh and laden with 
perfume. Wafted by the gale from the 
trees of a garden well watered by the dews 
of the Divine Word, and pruned by the 
Heavenly Husbandman, may they bear to 
many believers new burdens of fragrance, 
and so refresh and strengthen them anew 
with the Father's love and favor, the Son's 
pity and compassion, and the Holy Spirit's 
blessed presence. 

7 



BLOSSOMS 

FROM 

A BELIEVER'S GARDEN. 

FRANCES RIDLEY HAVERGAL. 

Jesus Leads Safely. 

"As a beast goeth down into the valley, 
the Spirit of the Lord caused him to rest " 
(Isa. Ixiii. 14). Can you not see the steep 
stony path of the rocky descent into a des- 
ert valley, and the careful owner's hand 
leading the hesitating horse, keeping fast 
hold of his head, and encouraging him with 
tones which he can understand, till the 
halting place at the bottom is safely 
reached? "So didst thou lead thy peo- 
ple," says Isaiah. So he leadeth me ! 
responds your heart, does it not ? Softly 
and safely, step by step, and mile by mile, 
9 



BLOSSOMS 

till the desert journey is over and the Fa- 
ther's home reached ! Jesus " goeth be- 
fore." He prepares the earthly as well as 
the heavenly places for us. He will be 
there when we get to the new place. He 
went in the way before to search us out a 
place to pitch our tents in. 



Jesus Knows the Way. 

We have not passed this way here- 
tofore, but the Lord Jesus has. " For we 
have not an high-priest which cannot be 
touched with the feeling of our infirmi- 
ties" (Heb. iv. 15). It is all untrodden 
and unknown ground to us, but he knows 
it all by personal experience ; the steep 
bits that take away our breath, the stony 
bits that make our feet ache so, the hot, 
shadeless stretches that make us feel so ex- 
hausted, the rushing rivers that we have to 
pass through, Jesus has gone through it all 
before us. For " Himself took our infirmi- 
ties and bare otir sicknesses" (Matt. viii. 
17.) Oh, think of " the things that he suf- 
fered," over and above the great atoning 
suffering on the cross, just that he might 
10 



FROM A BELIEVER* S GARDEN, 

personally know our little sorrows, and 
personally enter into our insignificant suf- 
ferings, and succor us in them with his 
own mighty help ! 

Jesus Knows Our Strength. 

" For he knoweth our frame " (Ps. ciii. 
14). And he does not only know with that 
sort of up-on-the-shelf knowledge, which is 
often guilty of want of thought among our- 
selves, but he remembereth that we are 
dust. " For he remembered that they were 
but flesh" (Ps. Ixxviii. 39). Think of 
that when you are tempted to question the 
gentleness of the leading. He is remem- 
bering all the time ; and not one step will 
he make you take beyond what your foot 
is able to endure. Never mind if you 
think it will not be able for the step that 
seems to come next; either he will so 
strengthen it that it shall be able, or he 
will call a sudden halt, and you shall not 
have to take it at all. Think of Jesus not 
merely entering into the fact, but into the 
feeling of what you are going through. 
" Touched with the feeling y How deep 



BLOSSOMS 

that goes ! When we turn away to him 
in our wordless weariness of pain, which 
only he understands, we find out that we 
have to do with him in quite a different 
sense from how we have to do with any- 
one else. We could not do without him, 
and thank God we shall never have to do 
without him. 



Jesus Leads Softly. 

It is only when we are coming up from 
the wilderness, leaning on our Beloved 
that we can realize how softly he is lead- 
ing us. " Who is this that cometh up 
from the wilderness, leaning upon her be- 
loved?" (Cant. viii. 5). For if we are 
pulling this way and that way, straggling 
and struggling, and wasting our steps by 
little turnings aside, he may have to resort 
to other means to keep us in the way at 
all. But if we are willing to lean, we shall 
find that he is leading, not only rightly 
(that we never doubted), but softly too. 
And leading softly will not be leading 
slowly. "And he led them forth by the 
right way " (Ps. cvii. 7). 



FROM A BELIEVER'S GARDEN. 

Jesus Was Led Roughly. 

Never once was he gently led. He 
was led into the wilderness to be tempted 
of the devil (Matt. iv. i). He was led by 
men filled with wrath to the brow of the 
hill, that they might cast him down head- 
long (Luke iv. 29). He was led away to 
Annas ; led away to Caiaphas (John xviii. 
13, Matt. xxvi. 57); led into the council 
of the elders and chief priests and scribes 
(Luke xxii. 66) ; led to Pontius Pilate 
(Matt, xxvii. 2), and into the hall of judg- 
ment (John xviii. 28). And then, he, our 
Lord Jesus Christ, was led as a sheep to 
the slaughter (Acts viii. 32) ; led away to 
be crucified! (John xix. 16). Verily, 
*' His way was rougher and darker than 
mine." 

The Reason Why Jesus Was so Led. 

"The good shepherd giveth his life 
for the sheep" (John x. 11). Oh, won- 
derful gift ! not promised, but given ; not 
to friends, but to enemies. Given without 
condition, without reserve, without return ! 
13 



BLOSSOMS 

Himself unknown and unloved, his gift 
unsought and unasked, he gave his life 
for thee — a more than royal bounty — the 
greatest gift that Deity could devise. Oh, 
grandeur of love ! " I lay down my life 
for the sheep!" (John x. 15). And we 
for whom he gave it have held back, and 
hesitated to give our lives, not even for 
him (he has not asked us to do that), but 
to him ! But that is past, and he has 
tenderly pardoned the unloving, ungrateful 
reserve, and has graciously accepted the 
poor little fleeting breath and speck of 
dust which was all we had to offer. And 
now his precious death and his glorious 
life are all " for thee." 



The Lord Waits for Our Faith. 

Does it make no difference if the patient 
quietly lets the surgeon do what he thinks 
best? A remedy applied by force, or sub- 
mitted to unwillingly, may be quite coun- 
teracted by fidget, or by feverishness in- 
duced or increased through setting one's 
self against what is prescribed or advised. 
The Lord's remedies do , not have fair 
14 



FROM A BELIEVER'S GARDEN, 

play, when we set ourselves against them. 
Even Omnipotence waits for the faith that 
will let it act. 



Faith the Key to Unsearchable 
Riches when put into the Lord's 
Hand. 

Faith is the key to the infinite treasury 
of "the unsearchable riches of Christ" 
(Eph. iii. 8), and in giving us faith he 
gives us measure for measure. He is ready 
to make us " rich in faith" {Jas. ii. 5), and 
then, still to "increase our faith" (Luke 
xvii. 5) "unto all riches of the full assur- 
ance of understanding" (Col. ii. 2). Ask 
for this golden key, and then put it into the 
Lord's hand, that he may turn it in the 
lock. 

Unreserved Submission to the Will 
of the Lord. 

How often God's dear children tremble 

to say an unreserved " Let him do what 

seemeth him good" (i Sam. iii. 18), 

though they are under no such shadow 

15 



BLOSSOMS 

of certainly coming events ! It is almost 
easier to say it when a crushing blow has 
actually fallen, than when there is sus- 
pense and uncertainty as to what the Lord 
may be going to do. The Lord who loves 
you, the Lord who thinks about you and 
cares for you, the Lord who understands 
you, the Lord who never makes a mistake, 
the Lord who spared not his own Son, but 
gave him up for you, will you not let 
kwi do what seemeth him good ? Then 
think w/iat it is you are to let him do. 
Something out of your sight, perhaps, but 
not out of his sight. For the original 
word in every case is, " what is good in 
his eyes.^"* 

"Now, O Lord, thou art our father; 
we are the clay, and thou our potter'* 
(Isa. Ixiv. 8). Whatever may be our pot- 
ter's mysterious mouldings, or our Father's 
mysterious dealings (I do not mean ab- 
stract, or possible, or future ; but real, and 
present, and pressing), let us give the one 
sweet answer which meets everything: 
" Even so. Father ; for so it seemed good 
in thy sight" (Luke x. 21). 

16 



FROM A BELIEVER'S GARDEN. 

The Fruition of Unreserved Sub- 
mission. 

'^According to thine own heart hast 
thou done all these great things" (2 Sam. 
vii. 21); and again: "Thou hast dealt 
well with thy servant, O Lord, according 
unto thy word " (Ps. cxix. 65). His hand, 
his heart, his word — what an unmeasur- 
able measure of his bounty ! The great 
hand that holds the ocean in its hollow is 
opened to satisfy our desire, and to go be- 
yond that, exceeding abundantly, giving us 
according to the heart that " so loved the 
world," and according to the word which 
is so deep and full that all the saints that 
ever drew their hope and joy from it can- 
not fathom its ever upspringing fountain. 

Perhaps nobody knows the Bible well 
enough to know the full significance of the 
saying, " Be it unto me according to thy 
word." How much less can we imagine 
what shall yet be the unrevealed royal 
bounty according to his heart of infinite 
love and hand of infinite power ! " What 
I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt 
know hereafter" (John xiii. 7). "And ye 
2 17 



BLOSSOMS 

shall .... be satisfied, and praise the 
name of the Lord your God, that hath 
dealt wondrously with you" (Joel ii. 26). 

The Refreshment of Silence. 

Only real friends understand silence. 
With a passing guest or ceremonial ac- 
quaintance you feel under an obligation 
to talk ; you make efforts to entertain them 
as a matter of courtesy ; you may be tired 
or weak; but no matter, you feel you must 
exert yourself. But with a very dear and 
intimate friend sitting by you, there is no 
feeling of the kind. To be sure, you may 
talk if you feel able, pouring out all sorts 
of confidences, relieved and refreshed by 
the interchange of thoughts and sympa- 
thies. But if you are very tired, you 
know you do not need to say a word. 

None but our Lord can interpret the 
unseen pulsings of that which to human 
ken is only silence. He hears the music 
they are measuring out before him. He 
takes the confidence of that hush at its full 
value of golden love. He sees the soul's 
attitude of devotion and faith through the 
shadows which hide it from itself. 
18 



FROM A BELIEVER'S GARDEN. 

The Response to Silence. 

An invalid was left alone one evening 
for a little while. After many days of 
acute pain there was a lull. " Now," she 
thought, •'! shall be able to pray a little." 
But she was too wearied out and exhausted 
for this. Only one whisper came : " Lord 
Jesus, I am so tired ! " She prayed no 
more ; she could not frame even a petition 
that, as she could not speak to him, he 
would speak to her. But the Lord Jesus 
knew all the rest. Very tenderly did he, 
who knows how to speak a word in season 
to the weary, choose a message in reply 
to that little whisper. " Be silent to the 
Lord ! " It came like a mother's " hush " 
to one whom his mother comforteth. 

All your wants lie upon him, and these 
wants are each and all foreseen and pro- 
vided for, and supplied with untiring love. 
He knows in an instant when you are 
weary or ailing, whether in body or spirit, 
and knows how to speak the right word 
for either, speaking verily to your heart — 
knows, too, when to be silent for a little 
while. 

19 



BLOSSOMS 

The Dew of the Word — It is Silent. 

The dew distils in silence. So does the 
speech of our God. Most frequently in 
the silence of trust. In that stillness 
God's silent love can be condensed into 
dew-like communications ; not read, not 
heard, but made known by the direct 
power of the Spirit upon the soul. 

The Dew of the Word— It is Re- 
freshing. 

You look cut some dark night after a 
hot, dusty day; there is no storm, no rain, 
there is not the least token to your senses 
of what is going on. You look out again 
in the morning, and you see every blade 
and leaf tipped with a dewdrop; every- 
thing is revived and freshened, prepared 
for the heat of the day, and smiling at the 
glow. Just so his words are silently fall- 
ing on your souls in the darkness, and 
preparing them for the day. They do not 
come with any sensible power; nothing 
flashes out from the page as at other times ; 
nothing shines so as to shed any pleasant 
light on your path ; you do not hear any 
20 



FROM A BELIEVER'S GARDEN. 

sound of abundance of rain. You seem 
as if you could net take the words in ; and 
if you could your mind is too weary to 
meditate on them. But they are distilling 
as the dew all the time ! 

The Dew of the Word — It Distils 
IN THE Darkness. 

Let us be trustfully content to let this 
dew of heaven fall in the dark, and when 
we cannot hear or see, recollect that he 
says, " My speech shall distil as the dew." 
Our part is to believe this, and leave our- 
selves open to it as we read what perhaps 
seems a very dim page of the Bible with 
very tired eyes; or, perhaps, lie still 
through the long hours of night, with no 
power to meditate on the fitful gleams of 
half-recollected verses that just cross our 
minds and seem to leave no trace. Never 
mind — the dew is falling ! 

The Dew of the Word — It Distils 
IN Drops. 

The dew falls not in one mass of water, 
but in innumerable little drops. What one 

21 



BLOSSOMS 

drop does not reach another does. So it 
is not one overwhelmingly powerful word 
which does this holy night-work in the 
soul, but the unrealized influence of many, 
dropping softly on the plants of the Lord 
which he has planted, one resting here, 
another there; one touching an unrecog- 
nized need, and another reaching an un- 
consciously failing grace. ** Each drop 
uncounted hath its own mission, and is 
duly sent to its own leaf or blade." 

The Dew of the Word, though In- 
visible, IS not the Less Refresh- 
ing. 

Do not quarrel with the invisible dew 
because it is not a visible shower. The 
Lord would send a shower if that was the 
true need to be supplied to his vineyard ; 
but as he is sending his speech in another 
form, you may be quite sure it is because 
he is supplying your true need thereby. 
He knows which way to water his vine- 
yard. These words of his which you are 
remembering so feebly, or reading without 
being able to grasp, are not going to return 

22 



FROM A BELIEVER'S GARDEN. 

void. They are doing his own work, on 
your own soul. By and by they will 
sparkle out in the light of a new morning, 
and you will find yourself starting fresh, 
and perhaps wondering how it is that the 
leaves of life which hung so limp and 
drooping are so fresh and firm again on 
their stems. 

Softly the dew in the evening descends. 

Cooling the sun-heated ground and the gale ; 

Flow' rets all fainting it soothingly tends, 
Ere the consumings of mid-day prevail. 

Sweet gentle dewdrops, how mystic your fall. 

Wisdom and mercy float down in you all. 

Softer and sweeter by far is that Dew 

Which from the Fountain of Comfort distils. 

When the worn heart is created anew. 
And hallowed pleasure its emptiness fills. 

Lord, let thy Spirit bedew my dry fleece ! 

Faith then shall triumph, and trouble shall cease. 
{Rev. W. H. Havergal : last hyntn^ 1870.) 

The Lord Silent in His Love. 
" He will be silent in his love " (Zeph. 
iii. 17, margin). Can any words be more 
beautiful ! It is as if he, even he, who 
made man's mouth, had made no words 
which could express his exceeding great 
love, and therefore he could only expand 
23 



BLOSSOMS 

it in the silence which lies above and below 
and beyond all language. When we have 
said, as very likely we have often done, 
"Why art thou silent unto me, O Lord?'* 
why did we not take his own exquisite 
answer, and trust the love that was veiled 
in the silence ? For whenever we can say, 
" Truly my soul waiteth upon [Heb. is silent 
to) God" (Ps. Ixii. i),we may rest assured 
that any apparent waiting on his part is 
only "that he may be gracious," yes, 
" very gracious unto thee." 



Jesus the Sinner's Friend. 

If it is sense of sin which does not let 
you be comfortable, turn at once to " him 
with whom you have to do." Remember, 
it is not with Satan that you have to do, 
nor with your accusing conscience, but with 
Jesus. He will deal with all the rest ; you 
only have to deal with him. And he is 
your great High Priest. He has made full 
atonement for you — for the very sins that 
are weighing on you now. 



24 



FROM A BELIEVER'S GARDEN. 

Jesus the Tried One's Trust. 

If it is ie7tiptation that will not let you 
rest, come straight away out of the very 
thick of it ; it may be with the fiery darts 
sticking in you. Come with all the haunt- 
ing thoughts that you hate, just as you are, 
to " Him with whom you have to do." You 
would not or could not tell the temptations 
to any one else ; but then you have not got 
to do with any one else in the matter, but 
only with Jesus. And he " suffered, being 
tempted." 

Jesus the Sick One's Sympathizer. 

If it is bodily weakness, sickness, or 
pain, how very sweet it is to know that we 
have to do with Jesus, who is "touched 
with the feeling of our infirmities." (The 
word is thQ same that is elsewhere trans- 
lated sickness : John xi. 2-4.) Don't you 
sometimesfinditveryhardto make even your 
doctor understand what the pain is like ? 
Words don't seem to convey it. And after 
you have explained the trying and weary- 
ing sensation as best you can, you are con- 



BLOSSOMS 

vinced those who have not felt it, do not 
understand it. ^^Thou wilt make all his 
bed in his sickness." Does not this ten- 
der, sympathetic, and continuous care in 
sickness militate against the idea that sick- 
ness is from Satan, and, therefore, " not to 
be remained under ? " 

Jesus our Mediator with God. 

We have to do with him directly. 
There is absolutely nothing between the 
soul and Jesus, if we will but have it so. 
We have himself as our Mediator with 
God, and the very characteristic of a medi- 
ator is, as Job says, " that he might lay his 
hand upon us both." So the hand of Jesus, 
who is himself "the man of thy right 
hand," is laid upon us with no intermedi- 
ate link and no intervening distance. 

Jesus our Constant Need. 

I could not do without thee, 

Jesus, Saviour dear ! 
E'en when my eyes are holden, 

1 know that thou art near. 
How dreary and how lonely 

This changeful life would be 
26 



FROM A BELIEVER'S GARDEN, 

Without the sweet communion, 
The secret rest with thee. 

I could not do without thee ! 

No other friend can read 
The spirit's strange, deep longings, 

Interpreting its need. 
No human heart can enter 

Each deep recess of mine, 
And soothe and hush and calm it, 

O blessed Lord, but thine ! 

The Lord's Cherishing — More Pa- 
tient AND Gentle than the Most 
Loving Nurse. 

Think how " a nurse cherisheth her chil- 
dren" (i Thess. ii. 7). How the little ail- 
ments are watched and attended to ; how 
the little weary heads are laid on her 
shoulders and stroked to sleep ; how the 
little meals are regulated and given, never 
forgotten — who ever heard of such a 
thing ? How the little garments are kept 
clean and comfortable, changed and 
mended as need may be ! How the nur- 
sery fire is looked after (while all the while 
the guard is kept on the bars), so that the 
room should not be too hot or too cold ! 
How the little bodies are cared for and 
27 



BLOSSOMS 

loved every inch, even the little fingers and 
toes ! How the little fancies are borne with 
and entered into, not unheeded or scorned, 
and the silly little questions patiently an- 
swered, and the baby lessons taught, and 
the small tempers managed, and checked, 
and forgiven ! That is cherishing. Need 
we trace its close resemblance to the deal- 
ings of our infinitely patient and gentle 
Lord? 

The Lord's Cherishing — More Care- 
ful AND Loving than the Most 
Tender Husband. 

Think of the cherishing of the weak wife 
by the strong husband, itself shown by the 
only possible stronger figure, — " No man 
ever yet hated his ownjiesh^ but nourisheth 
and cherisheth it," — this set forth by the 
Holy Ghost through the pen of an apostle, 
to convey to you some dim idea of the 
Lord's love and care and thought for you. 
What could he say more ? For even thus 
the Lord cherisheth you : he gives you 
his name to bear as your honor, and his 
very heart to dwell in as the home of your 
28 



FROM A BELIEVER'S GARDEN. 

soul. He gives you the right of constant 
access, the right of continual dwelling in 
his presence. He makes you partaker of 
his very nature, joining you unto himself, 
not only in a perpetual covenant, but as 
"one spirit'' with him. 

The Lord's Cherishing — Constant 
AND Everlasting as His own 
Soul. 

His cherishing goes on night and day, 
just as much in the dark as in the light, 
and will go on, faithfully, ceaselessly, all 
through your life-long need of it, unto the 
end ; and there is no shadowing whisper to 
fall upon this life-long manifestation of love, 
no such word as "till death us do part." 
No absence of your Lord shall deprive you 
of it ; and all that death can do is to take 
away the last veil, that you may see face to 
face, and know even as you are known. 
His care over you will then be exchanged 
for perfect joy over you. " He shall see 
of the travail of his soul and be satisfied." 



29 



BLOSSOMS 

The Lord's Cherishing — It is the 
Believer's Portion. 

Do not hesitate to take all the revelation 
of love that shines softly through this one 
word " cherisheth," for your own self; for 
the more you feel yourself to be the weak- 
est imaginable member of Christ, unworthy 
to be a member at all of his glorious body, 
the more closely and sweetly will it apply 
to you. 

God's Revelation of Himself to Be- 
lievers — In His Word. 

In Deuteronomy, that wonderful book 
of remindings, he has caused this gracious 
name, "the Lord thy God," or "the Lord 
your God," to be written no less than two 
hundred and twenty-seven times. What a 
name for him to be revealed by to the way- 
ward wanderers of Israel ! and what com- 
fort to us that he is the same God to us ! 

God's Revelation of Himself to Be- 
lievers — By His Spirit. 

Every part of God's word is a revelation, 
30 



FROM A BELIEVER'S GARDEN. 

more or less clear, of himself. When we 
do not see this, it is only that we miss it, not 
that it is not there. Do we not know how 
very possible it is to read the historical 
parts merely as history, and the prophet- 
ical merely as prophecy, and the doctrinal 
merely as doctrine, and miss the vision of 
God which everywhere shines through the 
glass darkly, if only his good Spirit opens 
our eyes to see it ! And even when we do 
trace out God himself in his recorded 
works and ways, how often we miss the 
personal comfort of remembering our own 
close and personal interest in what we see 
of his character and attributes. It makes 
all the difference to recollect, at every 
glimpse of these, that ^Uhis God is our 
God!" 

God's Revelation of Himself to Be- 
lievers — In His Providence. 

It is wonderful what a freshness and real- 
ity the simple application of this little verse 
will give to all our reading. Just try it at 
once, whatever may be the next passage 
you read ! I question if there is a single 
31 



BLOSSOMS 

chapter, from the first of Genesis to the 
twenty-second of Revelation, which will 
not reflect the light of this beautiful little 
lamp. First ask for the direct and present 
and fresh anointing of the Holy Spirit, 
that you may behold your God. And then 
whether your gaze is turned upon a prom- 
ise which reveals him as the Loving One, 
or a warning which reveals him as the 
Just and Holy One : whether you read a 
history which shows his grand grasp in 
ordering the centuries, or a verse which 
shows his delicate touch upon the turn of 
a moment — as you admire, say, ^^This 
God is our God." 



God's Revelation of Himself to Be- 
lievers — By His Gracious Attri- 
butes. 

When you come to the many direct and 
gracious declarations of what God is, you 
will find these words light them up splen- 
didly: "The Lord, the Lord God, gra- 
cious and merciful, long-suffering, and 
abundant in goodness and truth." This 
God is our God ! " The I-.ORD is good, a 
32 



FROM A BELIEVER'S GARDEN. 

stronghold in the day of trouble." This 
God is our God ! " Glorious in holiness, 
fearful in praises, doing wonders." This 
God is our God! "God is love." This 
God is our God ! 

God's Revelation of Himself to Be- 
lievers — By the Gift of His Son. 

When we read the life of his dear Son 
and see what that beloved Son, in the in- 
finite lovableness of his exquisite perfec- 
tion, must have been to the Father, who 
yet spared him not; and, most of all, when 
we read of the hand of God being laid upon 
the man of his right hand, when he made 
the iniquities of us all to meet on him, and 
let him suffer unto death for us and for 
our salvation, then, above all, let us turn 
to God the Father and say, " This God, who 
so loved the world, is our God." 

God's Hand upon us is as a Tuner's. 

Have you ever watched the exceedingly 

delicate and yet firm pressure of the hand 

of a skilful tuner ? He will make the string 

produce a perfectly true note, vibrating in 

3 3Z 



BLOSSOMS 

absolute accord with his own never-chang- 
ing tuning-fork. The practised hand is at 
one with the accurate ear, and the pressure 
is brought to bear with most delicate ad- 
justment to the resistance ; the tension is 
never exceeded, he never breaks a string, 
but he patiently strikes the note again and 
again, till the tone is true and his ear is sat- 
isfied, and then the muscles relax and the 
pressure ceases. The string may be a poor 
little thin one, yielding a very small note, 
but that does not matter at all ; it is wanted 
in its place, just as much as a great bass 
one, that can yield a volume of deep sound. 
The tuner takes just the same pains with it, 
and is just as satisfied when it vibrates true 
to the pitch, retaining its own individual 
tone. That string could not tune itself, and 
no machine was ever invented to accom- 
plish it ; nothuig but the firm and sensitive 
pressure of the tuner's own living hand can 
bring it into tune. 

Will you not trust your Tuner, and begin 
a note of praise even under the pressure ? 



34 



FROM A BELIEVER'S GARDEN. 

God's Hand when Heaviest is Near- 
est. 

When the pressure is sorest, the hand 
must be nearest. What should we do in 
suffering if we were left to imagine that it 
was Satan's hand that presses so sore ! 
Our Father has not left us in any doubt 
about it. This settles it: "Thy hand;" 
"Thou didst it" (Ps. xxxix. 9); "The 
blow of thine hand" (Ps. xxxix. 10); 
"Thy hand was heavy upon me" (Ps. 
xxxii. 4). It cannot be otherwise, for "in 
the shadow of his hand hath he hid me " 
(Isa. xlix. 2) ; and how can any other 
press you there? What is hid in God's 
hand must be out of reach of Satan's. 

Marching Orders — Go! 

"Go" does not mean "send." "Go" 
does not mean "pray." "Go" means 
"6"^./" simply and literally. 

Marching Orders — Addressed to 
Me! 

Is it fair to accept his "C^w^ye," and 
35 



BLOSSOMS 

refuse his "G"^ ye ? " Is the first, with its 
untold blessings, to be appropriated per- 
sonally, notwithstanding its plural form, 
and the second to be merely read as an 
interesting general command to whomso- 
ever it may concern, but certainly not to 
ourselves ? 

Marching Orders — Must I Go? 

As the Lord Jesus Christ said " Go ye," 
the obligation lies upon each of his true 
followers to consider definitely, at least 
once in his or her life, whether the cir- 
cumstances in which he has placed them 
do or do not definitely preclude them from 
literally obeying this distinct and most lit- 
eral commandment. 

There are many who would delight to 
go, but whose way God has entirely hedged 
up. Are there none whose way is not so 
hedged up? He who spared not his own 
Son, but with him freely gives us all things, 
is saying, very clearly and loudly, "Whom 
shall I send, and who will go for us ? " Will 
any one who might say, " Here am I, send 
me I " refuse to say it ? 
36 



FROM A BELIEVER'S GARDEN, 

Marching Orders — Volunteers 
Wanted. 

If our loyalty were as literal as his love, 
if our obedience were as literal as his suf- 
ferings, would there, could there be such 
want of volunteers to go where he has 
plainly set up his standard, and such want 
of free-handed pouring into his treasury, 
and such want of brave speaking out of 
heart-abundance, and such want of fervent, 
faithful, persevering echoes of the great 
prayer, " Father, glorify thy Son ! '* 

Marching Orders — By whom Given. 

Who gives the marching orders ? Ah ! 
that is the secret of their force, that is the 
secret of the thrill with which they have 
reached the hearts of men and women who 
have hazarded their lives to carry them out, 
faithful unto death, in their noble, literal 
obedience. P'or it was the voice of the 
Captain of their salvation that they rec- 
ognized and followed, as the ** Go ye there- 
fore" fell upon their opened ears. 



37 



BLOSSOMS 

Power Bestowed on our Master. 

All power is given unto him, our Sav- 
iour, our Master, absolutely, unlimitedly, 
eternally ! It is such a happy thought ! 
As love and knowledge gradually sup- 
planted fear, how delighted, one might 
almost say how proud, the disciples must 
have been, as miracle after miracle re- 
vealed the power of Jesus of Nazareth! 
Yet they did not know that. he had all 
power. JVe know it, for he has told us. 

Power Bestowed on our Master — Its 
Exercise. 

All power is given unto him. First, 
power to give eternal life to as many as 
his Father has given him ; then power on 
earth to forgive sins ; then power to uphold 
all things. And these really include all 
power in heaven and in earth. All power. 

Power Bestowed on our Master — Its 
Disposal. 

How quietly he disposes of it when he 
says, not to veteran apostles, but to his 

38 



FROM A BELIEVER'S GARDEN. 

mere recruits : *' Behold, T give unto you 
power .... over all the power of the 
enemy! " What must the reserve be when, 
this small delegated share is to overmatch 
" all the power of the enemy ! " 

All power is given unto /iv?ty not to us, 
for we could neither receive it nor use it ; 
but to him for us. For " all things are for 
your sakes." Joined to him by faith we 
change our weakness into strength, for his 
power flows into us, and rests upon us. It 
is not that our weakness is made a little 
stronger, but that his strength is made per- 
fect in our weakness. 

God's Gifts to us should be the 
Measure of our Gifts to Others. 

" Freely ye have received, freely give." 
What have we freely received? Our 
Bibles give us a threefold answer, — (i) 
Love. God, our Father, says, " I will love 
them freely." (2) Justification, for "we 
are justified freely by his grace " and "by 
his blood." (3) Life, for he says, " I will 
give unto him that is athirst of the fountain 
of the water of life freely." And unto us 
39 



BLOSSOMS 

has been preached this " Gospel of God 
freely." The whole Bible is one long in- 
ventory of the things that are freely given 
to us, and yet we cannot reckon our wealth, 
for " «// things are yours." Possessing the 
one unspeakable gift, Jesus Christ himself, 
is "possessing all things." 

" As every man hath received the gift, 
even so minister the same." How will you 
do this ? Can you make it a question of 
shillings or pounds, dollars or cents? Is 
that what you have received ? Is that as 
you have received ? Will you not say, " I 
will freely sacrifice unto thee?" Sacrifice 
what ? "I beseech ye therefore, brethren, 
by the mercies of God, that ye present your 
bodies a living sacrifice." 

It is only with God-given treasure we 
can enrich others. When we want to give 
a word to another, it generally seems to 
come with more power if, instead of cast- 
ing about for what we think likely to suit 
them, we simply hand over to them any 
treasure-word which he has freshly given 
to ourselves. When he opens to us some 
shining bit of treasure, let us not forget: 
« Freely ye have received, freely give." 
40 



FROM A BELIEVER'S GARDEN. 

Marching Orders — Where to Go! 

The Lord Jesus sent out the seventy not 
to go where they liked ; not to take their 
chance of lighting on the right place or 
persons; not to begin his work where it 
might or might not be followed up. But 
he sent them before his face into every 
city and place whither he himself would 
come. Unto him should the gathering of 
the people be, and the coming presence of 
the Lord of the harvest proved that a har- 
vest was waiting for the reapers. *'There- 
fore said he unto them, The harvest truly is 
great, but the laborers are few." 

The Harvest — Its Laborers. 

Because the harvest is great and the 
laborers few, the Lord Jesus said, " Pray 
ye therefo7'e the Lord of the harvest that 
he would send forth laborers into his har- 
vest." If the fact remains, the command 
remains. And the fact does indeed remain, 
and we have no excuse in not knowing it. 

The Harvest — Its Overseer. 

Whether an English or American Sun- 
41 



BLOSSOMS 

day-school, or an Indian city, if the Master 
himself sends his servant or his handmaid 
into it, it is because he himself will come 
thither, blessing his reapers and receiving 
his sheaves. What an honor to be one of 
the "few" forerunners of the King, the 
herald of a silent yet real and mighty ad- 
vent of the Very God of Very God ! 

Talking — Its Range. 

What a power in the world talking is ! 
Words dropped, caught up, repeated, then 
ventilated, combined, developed, set brains 
and pens to work ; these again set tongues 
to work ; the talking spreads, becomes gen- 
eral; public opinionisformedandinfluenced, 
and the results are engraven in the world's 
history. And we, who have been translated 
into the kingdom of God's dear Son, we 
have tongues too, and what have we been 
talking about ? How have we used this 
same far-spreading power ? Only suppose 
that for every time each English-speaking 
Christian had talked about the day's news 
of the kingdoms of this world, he had spent 
the same breath in telling the last news of 
42 



FROM A BELIEVER'S GARDEN. 

the kingdom of Jesus Christ to his friends 
and casual acquaintances ! Why, how it 
would have outrun all the reports and 
magazines, and saved the expense of dep- 
utations, and set people wondering and 
inquiring, and stopped the prate of igno- 
rant reviewers who " never heard of any 
converts in India," and gagged the mouths 
of the adversaries with hard facts, and re- 
moved missionary results and successes 
from the list of " things not generally 
known ! " 

Talking — Its Subject. 

Some veiy intelligent and well-educated 
** sons of men " do not seem to know that 
there is such a thing as "his kingdom" at 
all, and whose fault is that ? They do not 
and will not read about it, but they could 
not help the "true report" of it reaching 
their ears if every one of us simply obeyed 
orders and talked, right and left, " of the 
glory of thy kingdom," instead of using 
our tongues to tell what we have just seen 
in the newspapers. 

We often quote, "All thy works shall 
43 



BLOSSOMS 

praise thee, O Lord, and thy saints shall 
bless thee." That sounds tolerably easy, 
but what next? "They shall speak of 
the glory of thy kingdom, and talk of thy 
power." Is this among the things that we 
ought to have done and have left undone? 
Are we not verily guilty as to this com- 
mand ? " Lord, have mercy upon us, and 
incline our hearts to keep this law ! " 

Talking from the Heart. 

When our Lord said, " Out of the abun- 
dance of the heart the mouth speaketh," 
he knew what was in man better than we 
know ourselves. We don't give ourselves 
the trouble to fill our hearts so that they 
cannot help overflowing. 

Talking Concerning the Kingdom. 

When we have just read of a remarkable 
political event or military victory, don't we 
forthwith talk about it ? And if the next 
person we meet has not heard of it, do we 
hesitate to tell him all we know about it on 
the spot? It does not look as if we cared 
44 



FROM A BELIEVER'S GARDEN. 

very much about our glorious Captain 
when we are not sufficiently interested in 
his latest victories in the mission field even 
to talk about them, especially to those who 
know nothing about them at all. 

Praying for Missions — The Duty. 

Most likely we never went to a mission- 
ary meeting in our lives but that we were 
told to pray for the work. We are quite 
used to it ; we take it as a matter of course, 
and as the right and proper thing to be said. 
Nobody disputes for an instant that it is a 
Christian duty, but — are we doing it ? 

Praying for Missions — The Fre- 
quency. 

Yes, are we doing it? Did you pray 
this morning what he bade you pray? 
Did you yesterday, or last week ? Surely 
it is no light thing to go on from day to 
day leaving undone a thing which we 
ought to have done, and about which his 
own lips gave the most explicit direction ! 



45 



BLOSSOMS 

Praying for Missions — The Cer- 
tainty OF THE Answer. 

If we know that he hears us in whatso- 
ever we ask, we know that we have the 
petitions that we desired of him. See 
what a splendid conclusion we reach ! 
Oh, " pray ye therefore ! " And if we 
thus pray, like little children, exactly what 
Jesus bids us pray, see if we do not find a 
real and probably conscious and immediate 
blessing in the very act,— the floodgates 
opened, the spirit of grace and of supplica- 
tion poured out, and the parched tongue 
filled with prayer and praise ! 

Praying for Jesus. 

" Prayer also shall be made for him con- 
tinually" (Ps. Ixxii. 15). To many it may 
be a new thought, to some a very startling 
one, that we are not only to pray to our 
King, but for our King. Yet words can- 
not be plainer, and we lose untold sweet- 
ness by gratuitously altering them. Yes, 
we may pour out our hearts in prayer for 
our King, besides spending our lives in 
working for him. 

46 



FROM A BELIEVER'S GARDEN. 

Praying for Jesus Because we Love 
Him. 

Let Love arise and come to the aid of 
Faith, and her quick eye shall pierce the 
shadow and trace new splendor through it. 
The more fervently we love any one, the 
more we want to pray for them. The very 
thought of the loved one is changed into 
prayer when it glows under the pressure 
of spirit. 

Believers Filled before they can 
Overflow. 

There seems a sevenfold sequence in his 
filling the lips of his messengers. First, 
they must be purified. The live coal from 
off the altar must be laid upon them, and 
he must say, " Lo, this hath touched thy 
lips, and thine iniquity is taken away, and 
thy sin is purged." Then he will create 
the fruit of them, and this seems to be the 
great message of peace, " Peace to hifn 
that is far off, and to him that is near, 
saith the Lord ; and I will heal him " (see 
Isa. Ivii. 19). Then comes the prayer, 
"O Lord, open thou my lips," and its 
47 



BLOSSOMS 

sure fulfilment. For then come in the 
promises, " Behold, I have put my words 
in thy mouth," and, " They shall withal 
be fitted in thy lips." Then, of course, 
" The lips of the righteous feed many," 
for the food is the Lord's own giving. 
Everything leads up to praise, and so we 
come next to " My mouth shall praise thee 
with joyful lips, when I remember thee." 
And lest we should fancy that " whe7t " 
rather implies that it is not, or cannot be, 
exactly always, we find that the mediation 
of Jesus throws this added light upon it, 
** By him, therefore, let us offer the sacri- 
fice of praise to God continually, that is, 
the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to " 
(margin, "confessing") "his name." 

Once I heard a beautiful prayer, which 
I can never forget ; it was this : " Lord, 
take my lips, and speak through them; 
take my mind, and think through it; take 
my heart, and set it on fire." And this is 
the way the Master keeps the lips of his 
servants, by so filling their hearts with his 
love that the outflow cannot be unloving, 
by so filling their thoughts that the utter- 
ance cannot be un-Christ-like. There 
48 



FROM A BELIEVER* S GARDEN. 

must be filling before there can be pouring 
out ; and if there is filling, there must be 
pouring out, for he hath said, " Out of the 
abundance of the heart the mouth speak- 
eth." 

Source of Unfailing Freshness — 
Jesus. 

There is only one unfailing source of un- 
failing freshness, — Christ himself. "Thou 
hast the dew of thy youth" — the only dew 
that never dries up through any heat or 
dust. " Christ in you, the hope of glory." 
His word is, " For her." Your word 
should be, " Thou, O Lord, art my glory." 

Source of Unfailing Freshness — 
Want of Jesus is Want of Fresh- 
ness. 

Jesus Christ is always fresh. 

Don't we know it ? Do we not always 
find him so, when we are in direct per- 
sonal communication with him, with 
"nothing between?" Are we not con- 
scious that when we lament over want of 
freshness, it really means want of Jesus? 
4 49 



BLOSSOMS 

We go and bemoan about it to a friend, 
perhaps, and ask what to do ; and all the 
while, down at the bottom, we are secretly 
aware that they can do nothing more or 
better than advise us to "go and tell 
Jesus" — to get into direct personal contact 
with him, alone with him again. 

Source of Unfailing Freshness— His 
Grace is Ever Fresh. 

All that we receive from Jesus is always 
fresh. How fresh his most familiar words 
come, when he gives them to us by his 
Spirit ! What is ever fresher than the old, 
old story, when any part of it is heard with 
the ear of faith, and our response is, "Jesus 
died for me ? " What is ever fresher than 
the remembrance of the exceeding great 
love of our Master and only Saviour, with 
its appropriating echo, "Jesus loves me ! " 
The water that we draw out of these wells 
of salvation is always fresh indeed. And 
so is the manna on which he would have 
us feed continually. And so is the oil with 
which he anoints us. 



50 



FROM A BELIEVER'S GARDEN. 

Source of Unfailing Freshness — His 
Glory is Ever Fresh. 

It is Jesus our Saviour who is the ever- 
fresh glory within us. It is the Holy Spirit, 
our Comforter, who shall pour his fresh oil 
upon us. With such resources, ought we 
not to refresh those around us? Ought 
they not to take knowledge of us that we 
have such a well of water within us, 
springing up into everlasting life ? Ought 
there not to be a dewy fragrance in our 
lives, in our words and ways, that may 
silently witness to the reality of the source 
of our freshness ? It is one of our special 
privileges to do this. 

Source of Unfailing Freshness — Our 
Glory is Never Fresh. 
If our glory is to be fresh in us, it all 
depends upon what the glory in us is. If 
it is any sort of our own, — anything con- 
nected with that which decayeth and wax- 
eth old in us or passeth away around us, — 
of course it cannot be always fresh, any 
more than the freshness of dawn or of 
springtime can last. Neither material nor 
51 



BLOSSOMS 

mental states can retain their exquisite and 
subtle charm, and spiritual states are no 
better off; "frames and feelings" have an 
inherent tendency to subside into flatness, 
dulness, staleness, or whatever else ex- 
presses the want of freshness. 

Sufferings of Jesus — How Manifold ! 

How much suffering is dimly hinted in 
the one intimation that he b^re our sick- 
nesses ! How much may be hidden under 
the supposition of the Jews that he was 
nearly fifty years of age, when so little be- 
yond thirty ! How sharp must have been 
the experiences which graved such lines 
upon the visage so marred more than any 
man ! Think of all that must have gone 
on under the surface of his home-life, 
where neither did his brethren believe in 
him ! Consider him that endured such 
contradiction of sinners against himself! 
Think what temptation must have been to 
the Holy One, and what the concentration 
of malice and great rage when the Prince 
of Darkness went forth to do his worst 
against the lonely Son of Man, whom he 
52 



FROM A BELIEVER* S GARDEN. 

knew to be the Son of God ! Think of 
Jesus alone with Satan ! Oh, what things 
he suffered before he came to the agony 
and bloody sweat, the cross and passion, 
which filled up the cup which his Father 
gave him to drink for us men and for our 
salvation ! 

Sufferings of Jesus — How Little we 
ARE Moved by Them! 

The bitterness of death to him is the 
ver}' fountain of the sweetness of life to 
us. Do the words, " The things which he 
suffered" (Heb. v. 8), after all seem to fall 
without power or reality on your heart? 
Is it nothing, or very little more than 
nothing, to you ? Not that you do not 
know it is all true, but your heart seems 
cold, and your apprehension mechanical, 
and your faith paralyzed — does this de- 
scribe you ? Thank God that feelings do 
not alter facts ! He suffered for this sinful 
coldness as well as for all other sins. He 
suffered, the Just for the unjust, and are 
we not emphatically unjust when we re- 
quite his tremendous love this way ? Still 
S2, 



BLOSSOMS 

you don't feel it, though you own it. You 
see it all, but it is through a transparent 
wall of ice. What is to be done ? Ask, 
and ask at once, for the Holy Spirit, that 
he may melt the ice and take of these 
things of Christ, showing them to you, not 
in the light of natural understanding and 
mere mental reception of undeniable facts, 
but revealing them with his own divine 
power and bowing your whole soul under 
the weight of the exceeding great love of 
our Master and only Saviour Jesus Christ, 
as manifested in " the things which he suf- 
fered." " For every one that asketh re- 
ceiveth." 

Forgiveness — Immediate. 

Don't fear to take forgiveness at once. 
God does not want long processes — ^he 
looks into the heart. If while sitting here 
any want to turn from sin and be forgiven, 
that is repenting ; if any are saying, " Yes, 
I know it is all true of me," that is confes- 
sion ; and " If we confess our sins, he is 
faithful and just to forgive us our sins." 
Now take forgiveness, for "you, being 
54 



FROM A BELIEVER'S GARDEN. 

dead in your sins and the uncircumcision 
of your flesh, hath he quickened together 
with him, having forgiven you all tres- 
passes " (Col. ii. 13). "When Jesus saw 
their faith, he said unto the sick of the 
palsy, Son, thy sins be forgiven thee." 

Forgiveness — Sin Forgotten. 

Shall sins come up again ? In the new- 
covenant God declares, " I will be merci- 
ful to their unrighteousness, and their sins 
and their iniquities will I remember no 
more." 

Forgiveness — Sin Blotted Out. 

There was once a deaf mute named 
John. Though he never heard any other 
voice, he heard the voice of Jesus, knew 
it, loved it, and followed it. One day he 
told the lady who had taught him, partly 
on his fingers and partly by signs, that he 
had had a wonderful dream. God had 
shown him a great black book and all his 
sins written in it, so many, so black ! And 
God had shown him hell, all open and 
fiery, waiting for him because of all these 
55 



BLOSSOMS 

sins. But Jesus Christ had come and put 
his red hand, red with the blood of his 
cross, all over the page, and the dear red 
hand had blotted all John's sins out ; and 
when God held up the book to the light he 
could not see one left ! 

God's Love — Is it Written on our 
Hearts ? 

"I have loved you, saith the Lord" 
(Mai. i. 2). 

This is only the old, old story, but it is 
written with the finger of God; graven 
with the diamond pen of his unchangeable 
truth on the rock of his everlasting pur- 
pose; traced in golden letters on records 
of the universe; printed in characters of 
living, shining, glowing light on hearts of 
believers ; written by the Spirit of the liv- 
ing God, not with ink but blood, precious 
blood of Christ, blood shed on the cruel 
cross for us. Query : Is it written on our 
hearts? If not, O blessed Saviour, write 
it now. 



56 



FROM A BELIEVER'S GARDEN. 

Jesus' Love — Do we Love Him? 

"Love thee." Do we P How worthy 
Jesus is of our love, of our desire to love 
him ! If we can't yet say, " Lord, thou 
knowest all things, thou knowest that I 
love thee" (John xxi. 17), can we say, 
" the desire of our soul is to thy name," 
and "to the remembrance of thee" (Isa. 
xxvi. 8) ? If so, be encouraged, for " He 
will fulfil the desire cf them that fear 
him " (Ps. cxlv. 19). The promise is to 
them that fear, not even love. 

Jesus' Love — Are we Draw^n by 
Him? 

** Draw me." The more we find our 
utter helplessness, the more we find his 
strength and sufficiency. His " drawing" 
always comes before our "coming;" our 
cry to him only the echo of his still, small 
voice (John vi. 44). It is a great mistake 
to think this great truth a reason for de- 
spair — it is reason for hope and confidence. 
If we have any desire, he gave it, and that 
is his drawing. Now, don't check and 
stifle his drawing — yield ; run. 
57 



BLOSSOMS 

Jesus' Love — If so, it is the Token 
OF HIS Love. 

"Drawing" is the token of everlasting 
love" (Jer. xxxi. 3). We desire because 
he draws; he draws because he loves. 
But let us *< run," " press," ** strive." No 
sauntering (i Cor. ix. 24). "We will 
run : " resolution, will, energy. Perhaps 
we feel we have no will, no energy; see 
how we need all from him. If we have 
it, he gave it ; if we have it not, we can 
only get it from himself. Sweet paradox, 
in such rtinning there is rest. 

Jesus' Love — If so, we Must Follow. 

" Draw me, we will run." We should 
not come alone, but when "drawn" seek 
to win others. "After thee." The secret 
of true running the heavenly race after 
Jesus is following close in heart, keeping 
near, abidincr in him, and also following 
his steps (i Pet. ii. 21). 



S8 



from a believer's garden. 

Jesus's Love — If so, we Reach the 
*' Secret of his Presence." 

We could not explain it to another what 
it is to feel Jesus near, to feel that we are 
brought into his chambers; but it is real, 
and unutterably sweet. It is such shelter 
in trouble, and such added sweetness in 
joy ! What treasures of happiness are 
ready for us if we will but come to Jesus ! 

This is no dream, but a reality. There 
is a " secret of his presence " into which 
he brings his children, not at first, but by 
degrees. " I have yet many things to say 
unto you, but ye cannot bear them now." 

Peace of Christ. 

"Peace I leave with you," is much; 
"my peace I give unto you," is more. 
The added word tells the fathomless mar- 
vel of the gift — " My peace." Not merely 
"peace with God;" Christ has made that 
by the blood of his cross, and, being justi- 
fied by faith, we have it through him. But 
after we are thus reconciled, the enmity 
and the separation being ended, Jesus has 
a gift for us from his own treasures, and 
59 



BLOSSOMS 

this is its special and wonderful value, that 
it is his very own. 

How we value a gift which was the 
giver's own! What a special token of 
intimate friendship we feel it to be ! To 
others we give what we have made or pur- 
chased; it is only to very near and dear 
ones that we give what has been our own 
personal enjoyment or use. And so Jesus 
gives not only peace made and peace pur- 
chased, but a share in his very own peace 
— divine, eternal, incomprehensible peace 
— which dwells in his own heart as God, 
and which shines in splendor of calmness 
through his life as man. No wonder that 
it passeth all understanding. 

The Believer's Motive. 

Not for " me " at all, but " for Jesus ; '' 
not for my safety, but for his glory ; not 
for my comfort, but for his joy; not that I 
may find rest, but that he may see the tra- 
vail of his soul and be satisfied ! Yes, for 
him I want to be kept. Kept for his sake; 
kept for his use ; kept to l3e his witness ; 
kept for his joy ! Kept for him, that in 
60 



FROM A BELIEVER'S GARDEN. 

me he may show forth some tiny sparkle 
of his light and beauty; kept to do his 
will and his work in his own way ; kept, 
it may be, to suffer for his sake ; kept for 
him, that he may do just what seemeth 
him good with me ; kept, so that no other 
lord shall have any more dominion over 
me, but that Jesus shall have all there is 
to have — little enough, indeed, but not 
divided or diminished by any other claim. 

Stricken and Smitten. 

Not the hand of an impotent foe, but 
the sharp sword of the omnipotent Lord of 
hosts, was lifted to smite his Shepherd — 
our Shepherd-king (Zech. xiii. 7) — The 
Great (Heb. xiii. 20), The Chief (i Pet. v. 
4), The Good (John x. 11), (and The 
Beautiful, as the original implies). Think 
of the words, " stricken, smitten of God " 
(Isa. liii. 4), with their unknown depths 
of agony, and then of Jesus, him whom we 
love (i Pet. i. 8), fathoming those black 
depths of agony alo7ie ! *^ Jesus, S7nitten of 
God! ■' (Is. Ixiii. 3) : can we even say the 
words, and not feel moved as no other 
61 



BLOSSOMS 

grief could move us ? Do not let us shrink 
from dwelling upon it ; let us rather ask 
the Holy Spirit, even now, to show us a 
little of what this awful smiting really was 
— to show us our dear Lord Jesus Christ, 
in this tremendous proving of his own and 
his Father's love — to whisper in our hearts 
as we gaze upon the Crucified One, 
** Behold ^^2/r King! " (John xix. ii). 

Sharing our Saviour's Sorrow. 

** Surely he hath borne our griefs, and 
carried our sorrows" (Isa. Ixiii. 4). The 
sorrows of the past, the very sorrow that 
may be pressing heavily at this moment ; 
all yours, all mine ; all the sorrows of all 
his children all through the groaning gen- 
erations; all that were*' too heavy" (Ps. 
xxxviii. 4) for them — Jesus bore them all. 
*' Is it nothing to you?" (Lam. i. 12). It 
is when the Lord says, " Now will I 
gather them" (the rebels and wanderers), 
that he adds, "And they shall sorrow a 
little for the burden of the King of princes " 
(Hos. viii. 10). Have we this proof that 
he has indeed gathered us ? For " all the 
62 



FROM A BELIEVER'S GARDEN. 

people," except the rebels, " passed over 
with the king" (2 Sam. xv. 23). Do we 
know anything of this passage over Cedron, 
the brook of sadness, with him ? Possibly 
it seems presumptuous to think of sharing 
"the fellowship of his sufferings," that 
mysterious privilege ! But mark, it was 
not only the mighty Ittai and "all his 
men," the nobles and the veterans, that 
passed over, but " all the little ones that 
were with him" too. And so "the little 
ones, the weak ones," the least member of 
his body, may thus "continue with" 
Jesus; and nothing brings one closer to 
another than a shared sorrow. 

Jesus Saves to the Uttermost. 

Suppose I were drowning, and you drew 
me out of the deepest water, just in time 
to save my life, but then left me wet and 
shivering and exhausted on the bank, to 
run the more than risk of wretched after- 
effects of cold and rheumatism, from which 
I might never entirely recover! That 
would not be saving " to the uttermost " in 
this sense of the word. But if you did the 

63 



BLOSSOMS 

thing completely — carrying me home, and 
doing everything necessary to restore me, 
and avert ill effects, and that effectually ; 
never relaxing in care and effort, nor letting 
me go, till you had me safe and well, how- 
ever long and difficult it might be, then 
you would have saved me " to the utter- 
most," in the true meaning of it. 

The Proof of Christ's Ability to 
Save. 

What is the proof that the Lord Jesus 
Christ is able to save you thus, to the 
uttermost? It is that he ever liveth to 
make intercession. For whom ? For them 
"that come unto God by him." Or, as he 
himself said, in that wonderful prayer 
when he lifted the veil from his own 
divine communing with the Father, and 
let us hear his mighty intercession; 
** Neither pray I for these alone, but for 
them also which shall believe on me 
through their word " (John xvii. 20) — ^thus 
again identifying " coming " with believ- 
ing. Then, if you come, the perpetual in- 
tercession of our ascended High Priest will 

64 



FROM A BELIEVER'S GARDEN. 

be for you, always for you. Only think 
that this is what Jesus is now living for — 
" liveth to make intercession" for you! 
Should we ever have dared to imagine 
such grace and love? Should we ever 
have conceived that such a privilege could 
be ours ? 

Salvation. 

David begins a Psalm by saying, " Truly 
my soul waiteth upon God : from him 
Cometh my salvation" (Ps. Ixii. i); but 
he quickly raises the key, and sings, " he 
07ily IS my salvation" (Ps. Ixii. 2). Per- 
haps we have long been quite clear that he 
072ly is our salvation from " everlasting 
destruction" (2 Thess. i. 9); but are we 
equally clear that he only is (not will be, 
but is) our present salvation from every- 
thing from which we want to be saved ? — 
from every danger, from every snare (Ps. 
xci. 3), from every temptation (2 Pet. ii. 9), 
from '* the hand oi all our enemies " (2 Sam. 
iii. 18), from our sins (Titus ii. 14)? In 
death we would cling to the words, " Christ 
Jesus came into the world to save sinners." 
Why not in life equally cling to, and 
5 6s 



BLOSSOMS 

equally make real use of, the promise, " he 
shall save his people from their sins" 
(i Tim. i. 15) — not merely from sin in 
general, but definitely "from their sins," 
personal and plural sins? " Is my hand 
shortened at all that it cannot redeem ? or 
have I no power to deliver? " (Isa. 1. 2.) 

" Come." 

Every "Come!" in the Bible is the 
call of the Spirit. For " all Scripture is 
given by inspiration of God " (2 Tim. iii. 
16), and the "holy men of God spake as 
they were moved by the Holy Ghost" (2 
Pet. i. 21). And every time that a still 
small voice in your heart says " Come," it 
is the call of the Spirit. Every time the 
remembrance of the Saviour's sweetest 
spoken word floats across your mind it is 
the Holy Spirit's fulfilment of our Lord's 
promise that " he shall bring all things to 
your remembrance, whatsoever I have 
said unto you." Last time those words, 
" Come unto me," came into your mind, 
whether in some wakeful night hour, or 
suddenly and unaccountably amid the stir 
66 



FROM A BELIEVER'S GARDEN. 

of the day, did you think that it was the 
vei7 voice of the Holy Spirit speaking in 
your heart ? Or did you let other voices 
drown it, not knowing that the goodness 
of God was leading you by it ? 

The Bride Says, **Come." 

It is not only the Spirit but the Bride 
who says, " Come." And it is remarka- 
ble that the Bride is never found saying 
" Come " without including herself. 
" Come with us " (Num. x. 29) ; " Come, 
and let us join ourselves unto the Lord " 
(Jer. 1. 5) ; " Come, and let us return 
unto the Lord" (Hos. vi. i) ; '* Let tis 
come boldly" (Heb. iv. 16). It is always 
"us," expressed or implied, though the 
speaker be patriarch, prophet, or apostle. 
And you may be very sure that those who 
venture to say "Come" to you are truly 
and deeply feeling the need of continual 
coming for themselves. If the Master's 
call were not sounding very fresh and 
sweet in their own hearts, they would not 
be constrained to sound it out to you (2 
Cor. V. 11). 

67 



BLOSSOMS 

The call to arise and come away is a 
proof that he is passing by (Luke xviii. 
37). And when Jesus passes by he looks 
upon you, though you are not yet able to 
see him. And he says that when he does 
this it is "the time of love" (Ezek. xvi. 
8). And oh, what that implies! What 
will he not do when the bright, warm, 
powerful rays of the love which passeth 
knowledge (Eph. iii. 19) are focussed 
upon you, and he says even to you, •' My 
love ! " giving you the glorious right to 
respond, " My beloved ! " (Esth. ii. 12-14). 

Come After Jesus. 

" Give us grace that we may daily en- 
deavor ourselves to follow the blessed 
steps of his most holy life " (John xiii. 15). 
Now, what are those steps ? Perhaps you 
are not even looking to see what they are, 
let alone following them ! Following the 
j/^j- is quite a different thing from think- 
ing to follow one's own idea of the gen- 
eral direction of a course. If you would 
only take one Gospel, and read it through 
with the earnest purpose of noting, by the 
68 



FROM A BELIEVER'S GARDEN. 

Holy Spirit's guidance, what the steps of 
Jesus are, you would soon see clearly 
whether you are following or not (Malt. 
xi. 29) far more clearly than by reading 
any amount of books about it, or consult- 
ing any number of human counsellors. 
Take for to-day only one indication of 
what those steps were. " "Who went about 
doing good." Do your steps correspond 
with that ? It is not " went about doing 
no harm," but actively and positively 
" doing good." 

Come With Jesus. 

"Ye see your calling" (i Cor. i. 26); 
it is nothing less than to come with 
Jesus. The enviable privilege of the 
\welve whom Jesus ordained " that they 
should be with him " (Mark iii. 14) is 
freely offered to you. Will you avail 
yourself of it ? Will you come with Jesus, 
walking with him (Rev. iii. 4, 21) from 
this day every step of the way ? Will you 
accept him as the guide with whom you 
will go, the friend with whom you will 
commune by the way ? It will be no 

69 



BLOSSOMS 

dreamy or nominal coming with him, if 
only you are willing to come. You will 
find it very real in all respects. 

Continual Coming. 

" To whom coming.''^ Here is the 
secret of advance in the narrow way, after 
we have entered by the strait gate (Matt, 
vii. 14). It is not the having come once 
and to begin with, but the coming contin- 
ually to Jesus. When we have once 
really come to him, it is not only our 
privilege, but our constant joy, to come to 
him about everything — to go on drinking 
at the fountain. It is a beautiful paradox 
which is realized and reconciled in the 
experience of those who come, that we 
may be continually coming afresh without 
ever going away — always at the fountain- 
head, and yet always coming to it. 

The Spirit will not Always Strive. 

But it is no light thing to put away a 

holy desire, however feeble ; because it 

sprang not from your own heart, but is the 

voice of the Spirit sayings Come ! It will 

70 



FROM A BELIEVER'S GARDEN. 

not always speak, if not obeyed. Turn 
back from Revelation to Genesis, and you 
find the shadow of the bright light of the 
winning call in the unchanged warning 
note : " My Spirit shall not always strive 
with man." Not always^ dear, unknown 
friend, whom I would fain win for my 
Lord — not always ! But he is striving 
now, he is calling now, " To-day, if ye 
will hear his voice." Listen, yield, come ! 

Disappointing the Love of Jesus. 

I do not think we consider enough how 
we disappoint the love of Jesus when we 
refuse to come with him (Luke xiii. 34). 
For he does truly and literally desire us to 
be with him (Cant. v. 2), Would he have 
made it the very climax of his great Prayer, 
representing it as the very culmination of 
his own rest and glory, that his people 
should be with him (John xvii. 24), if he 
did not so very much care about it, and was 
only seeking and saving us out of bare 
pity ? No, it \vas in his love as well as in 
his pity that he redeemed us ! (Is. Ixiii. 9). 
And love craves nearness. This is the 
71 



BLOSSOMS 

very thing that differences love from the 
lesser glow of mere pity, or kindness, 
whatever their degrees or combinations. 
The Lord Jesus would not say, " Come 
with me,^' if he did not feel towards us 
something far beyond any degree of pity 
and kindness. It is the royal invitation of 
his kingly love. 

Moments. 

We do not realize the importance of mo- 
ments. Only let us consider those two 
sayings of God about them, " In a moment 
shall they die," and, " We shall all be 
changed in a moment," and we shall think 
less lightly of them. Eternal issues may 
hang upon any one of them, but it has 
come and gone before we can even think 
about it. Nothing seems less within the 
possibility of our own keeping, yet nothing 
is more inclusive of all other keeping. 
Therefore, let us ask him to keep them for 
us. 

God — Our Help in all Things. 

He "performeth all things for me." 
Does he mean as much as this ? Well, he 
72 



FROsM A BELIEVER'S GARDEN. 

has caused it to be written for us, " that we 
might have hope ; " and what more do we 
want ? Then let him do it. Let him per- 
form all things for us. 

Not some things, but all things ; or the 
yery things which we think there is no 
particular need for him to perform will be 
all failures — wood, hay, and stubble to be 
burnt up. One by one let us claim this 
wonderful word ; " the thing of a day in 
his day," " as the matter shall require," 
being always brought to him with the God- 
given petition, " Do thou for me." 

God — Our Help at All Times. 

The times of marvellous help are times 
of danger. " When thou hast eaten and 
art full, .... and all that thou hast is 
multiplied," " beware lest " " then thy heart 
be lifted up" (Deut. viii. 11-14). ^^Whe7t 
he was strong, his heart was lifted up to 
his destruction " (2 Chron. xxvi. 1 6). Un- 
clasp the ivy from the elm, and it is pros- 
trate at once. Thank God, if he keeps us 
realizing, amidst the busiest work and the 
pleasantest success, that we have no power 
73 



BLOSSOMS 

ai all of ourselves to help ourselves ! 
Then there will be nothing to hinder his 
" continual help." As long as we say 
quite unreservedly " My help cometh from 
the Lord" (Ps. cxxi. 2), the help will 
come. As long as we are saying, ** Thou 
art my help," " He is our help," " a very 
present help." Then we shall not "be 
holpen with a little help," which is too 
often all we really expect from our omnip- 
otent Helper, just because we do not feel 
that we have " no might." Peter was a 
good swimmer, but he did not say "Lord, 
help me to swim ! " He said, " Lord, save 
me! " (Matt. xiv. 30, 31) and so the Mas- 
ter's help was instant and complete. " Most 
gladly therefore will I rather glory in my 
infirmities, that the power of Christ may 
rest upon me." 

Speaking Evil. 

*' Let none of you imagine evil in your 
hearts against his neighbor." And the 
characteristic of that charity, without which 
we are only "sounding brass" and "noth- 
ing," is, that it " thinketh no. evil " (i Cor. 
74 



FROM A BELIEVER'S GARDEN. 

xiii. I, 2, 5). Is not this the root from 
which the far-poisoning fruit springs ? We 
have first disobeyed another order: "What- 
soever things are of good report; .... 
think on these things." Instead of that, 
we " think " about the bad reports that we 
may have heard ; we develop the unkind 
hint into suspicion, and perhaps into accu- 
sation, by thinking about it, instead of 
thinking on and thinking out the probable 
"other side" of the case. Let us guard 
against the negative form of evil speaking, 
generally the most dangerous and cruel, 
even when the most thoughtless. Ab- 
salom was extremely clever in this. Who 
could quote any actual evil speaking 
against his royal father? Who could 
charge him with speaking evil of dignities ? 
And yet, by insinuation, by his way of put- 
ting things, by his very manner, he wrought 
a thousandfold more cruel harm than any 
amount of speaking out could possibly 
have done. Oh, to be watchful as to such 
omissions to speak well as amount to 
speaking evil ! watchful as to the eloquence 
of even a hesitation, watchful as to the 
forcible language of feature and eye ! 
75 



BLOSSOMS 

Rules for Speaking Against Wrong- 
doing. 

But what about cases in which wrong- 
doing must be spoken of for the sake of 
truth and justice? Clear as crystal are 
our instructions here : I . We are to speak 
" the truth." The truth ; not such part of 
it as will best prove our case, and nothing 
else ! Not what we suppose to be the 
truth. 2. " In love." Does all our tes- 
timony stand this test ? 3. " In the name 
of the Lord Jesus." Would not this check 
many a word against another ? 4. " To 
the glory of God." Failure in any one of 
these four rules brings us in guilty of sin. 
Oh, may he give us grace to keep our 
heart with all diligence (Prov. iv. 23), 
and himself set a watch this day before 
our mouth, and keep the door of our lips ! 
(Ps. cxli. 3.) May we cease to reason 
with unprofitable talk, or with speeches 
wherewith we can do no good (Job xv. 

4). 

" Take my lips, and let them be 
Filled with messages from thee." 



76 



FROM A BELIEVER'S GARDEN. 

Our Indwelling King. 

Our King comes not to pass but to 
**dwell in the midst of thee " (Zech. ii. lo) ; 
not only in his church Collectively, but in 
each believer individually (2 Cor. vi. 16). 
We pray, "Abide with us" (Luke xxiv. 
29), and he answers in the sublime plural 
of Godhead, "We will come unto him, 
and make our abode with him " (John 
xiv. 23). 

There should be three practical results 
of this belief : i. Holiness. We must see 
to it that we resolutely "put away" (Eph. 
iv. 31) all that ought not to be in his royal 
abode. " Having, therefore, these prom- 
ises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse our- 
selves from all filthiness of the flesh and 
spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of 
God" (2 Cor. vii. i). 2. Confidence. 
What does the citadel fear when an in- 
vincible general is within it? "The Lord 
thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; 
he will save" (Zeph. iii. 17). He is "a 
wall of fire round about," and "the glory 
in the midst of her" (Zech. ii. 5); and 
" he that toucheth you toucheth the apple 
77 



BLOSSOMS 

of his eye.'' 3. Joy. Yes ! " Be glad and 
rejoice with all the heart," " Sing and re- 
joice, O daughter of Zion ; for, lo, I come, 
and I will dwell in the midst of thee, 
saith the Lord." 

Jesus Himself Our King. 

How glad we are that he himself is our 
King ! For we are so sure that he is able 
even to subdue all things unto himself in 
this inner kingdom, which we cannot gov- 
ern at all. We are so glad to take him at 
his word, and give up the government into 
his hands, asking him to be our King in 
very deed, and to set up his throne of peace 
in the long disturbed and divided citadel, 
praying that he would bring every thought 
into captivity to his gentle obedience. 

Loyalty to Our King. 

Ask him this morning to make you so 
loving and loyal to him that, whatsoever 
he does, all day long, may please you, be- 
cause it has pleased him to do it. I think 
he loves us so much that he always gives 
us as much happiness as he can possibly 

78 



FROM A BELIEVER'S GARDEN. 

trust us with, and does what is pleasantest 
for his dear children whenever he sees it 
will not hurt them ; so, when he does 
something which at first does not seem so 
pleasant, we may still trust our beloved 
King, and learn by his grace to be pleased 
with whatsoever he does. 



^* I hear a sweet voice ringing clear, 

'All is well ! ' 
It is my Father's voice I hear. 

All is well ! 
Where'er I walk that voice is heard. 
It is my God, my Father's word — 
* Fear not, but trust ; 1 am the Lord, 

All is well.' " 



Subjects of the King. 

Is Jesus in very deed and truth " my 
King? " Where is the proof of it? Am 
I living in his kingdom of '* righteousness, 
and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost'* 
now? (Rom. xiv. 17). Am I speaking the 
language of that kingdom ? Am I follow- 
ing "the customs of the people" (Jer. x. 
3) which are not his people? or do I 
diligently learn the ways of his people 
(Jer. xii. 16)? Am I practically living 
79 



BLOSSOMS 

under the rule of his laws ? Have I done 
heart homage to him ? Am I bravely and 
honestly upholding his cause, because it is 
his, not merely because those around me 
do so ? Is my allegiance making any 
practical difference to my life to-day ? 

Soldiers of the King. 

The Son of God goes forth to war now- 
a-days. Do we go with him ? His cross 
is " without the gate." Do we go " forth 
unto him . . without the camp, bearing his 
reproach? " (Heb. xiii. 12, 13), Do we 
Really go with him every day and all day 
long, following " the Lamb whithersoever 
he goeth?" (Rev. xiv. 4). What about 
this week — this day ? Have we loyally 
gone with our King wherever his banner, 
his footsteps, go before? (i Pet. ii. 21). 

Servants of the King. 

If we are really, and always, and equally 
ready to do whatsoever (John ii. 5) the 
King appoints, all the trials and vexations 
arising from any change in his appoint- 
ments, great or small, simply do not exist. 
80 



FROM A BELIEVER'S GARDEN. 

If he appoints me to work there, shall I 
lament that I am not to work here ? (Josh. 
i. i6). If he appoints me to wait in-doors 
to-day, am I to be annoyed because I am 
not to work out-of-doors ? If I meant to 
write his messages this morning, shall I 
grumble because he sends interrupting 
visitors, rich or poor, to whom I am to 
speak them, or "show kindness" for his 
sake, or at least obey his command, " Be 
courteous?" (i Pet. iii. 8). If all my 
"members" (Rom. vi. 13) are really at 
his disposal, why should I be put out if 
to-day's appointment is some simple work 
for my hands or errands for my feet, instead 
of some seemingly more important doing 
of head or tongue ? 

The Word of the King. 

The word of our King is all we have 
and all we need for deep, utter heart-rest, 
which no surface waves of this trouble- 
some world can disturb. What gave " rest 
from thy sorrow and from thy fear" at the 
very first, when we wanted salvation and 
peace ? It was not some vague, pleasing 
6 81 



BLOSSOMS 

impression, some undefinable hush that 
came to us (or if it was, the unreality of 
the rest was soon proved), but some word 
of our King which we saw to be worthy 
of all acceptation ; we believed it, and by 
it Jesus gave us rest. 



Christ for us — His Hands. 

His hands literally pierced, when the 
whole weight of his quivering frame hung 
from their torn muscles and bared nerves ; 
literally uplifted in parting blessing ! Con- 
secrated, priestly hands; "filled'' hands 
(Ex. xxviii. 41, xxix. 9, etc., margin) — 
filled once with his great offering, and now 
with gifts and blessings "for thee!" 
Tender hands, touching and healing, lift- 
ing and leading with gentlest care. Strong 
hands, upholding and defending. Open 
hands, filling with good and satisfying 
desire (Ps. civ. 28, and cxlv. 16). Faith- 
ful hands, restraining and sustaining. 
" His left hand is under my head, and his 
right hand doth embrace me." 



82 



FROM A BELIEVER'S GARDEN. 

Christ for us — His Feet. 

His feet were weary very often, they 
were wounded and bleeding once. They 
made clear footprints as he went about do- 
ing good, and as he went up to Jerusalem 
to suffer; and these "blessed steps of his 
most holy life," both as substitution and 
example, were "for thee." Our place of 
waiting and learning, of resting and living, 
is at his feet, and still those " blessed feet " 
are and shall be " for thee " until he comes 
again to receive us unto himself, until, 
when the word is fulfilled, "they shall 
walk with me in white." 

Christ for us — His Voice. 

His voice the " voice of my beloved that 
knocketh, saying, Open to me, my sister, 
my love ; " the voice that his sheep " hear " 
and " know," and that calls out the fervent 
response, " Master, say on ! " This is not 
all. It was the literal voice of the Lord 
Jesus which uttered that one echoless cry 
of desolation on the Cross ^* for thee," and 
it will be his own literal voice which will 
say, " Come, ye blessed ! " to thee. 



BLOSSOMS 

Christ for us — His Lips. 

When we read through one of his Gos- 
pels with this thought, " His lips for me," 
wondering verse by verse at the grace 
which was poured into them, and the 
gracious words which fell from them, won- 
dering more and more at the cumulative 
force and infinite wealth of tenderness'and 
power and wisdom and love flowing from 
them, we cannot but desire that our lips 
and all the fruit of them should be wholly 
for him. " For thee " they were opened 
in blessing, "for thee" they were closed 
when he was led as a lamb to the slaughter. 
And whether teaching, warning, counsel, 
comfort, or encouragement, commandments 
m whose keeping there is a great reward, 
or promises which exceed all we ask or 
think — all the precious fruit of his lips is 
" for thee," really and truly meant ** for 
thee." 

Christ for us — His Wealth. 

" Though he was rich, yet for your sakes 
he became poor, that ye through his 
poverty might be rich." Yes, "through 
84 



FROM A BELIEVER'S GARDEN. 

his poverty " the unsearchable riches of 
Christ are **for thee." Sevenfold riches 
are mentioned, and these are no unminted 
treasure or sealed reserve, but all ready 
coined for our use and stamped with his 
own image and superscription, and poured 
freely into the hand of faith. The mere 
list is wonderful. " Riches of goodness," 
"riches of forbearance and longsuffering," 
" riches both of wisdom and knowledge," 
"riches of mercy," "exceeding riches of 
grace," and "riches of glory." 

Christ for us — Treasures of Wisdom 
AND Knowledge. 

He says, "All that I have is thine." He 
holds nothing back, reserves nothing from 
his dear children, and what we cannot re- 
ceive now he is keeping for us. He gives 
us " hidden riches of secret places " now, but 
by and by he will give us more, and the 
glorified intellect will be filled continually 
out of his treasures of wisdom and knowl- 
edge. But the sanctified intellect will be, 
must be, used for him, and only for him, 
now. 

85 



BLOSSOMS 

Christ for us — His Will. 

Creation and Providence are but the 
whisper of the power of his will, but re- 
demption is its music, and praise is the 
echo which shall yet fill his temple. The 
whisper and the music, yes, and *' the thun- 
der of his power," are all " for thee." For 
what is " the good pleasure of his will ? " 
(Eph. i. 5). Oh what a grand list of bless- 
ings proposed, provided, purchased, and 
possessed, all flowing to us out of it, and 
nothing but blessings, nothing but privi- 
leges which we never should have imag- 
ined, and which, even when revealed, we 
are " slow of heart to believe," nothing but 
what should even now fill us "with joy 
unspeakable and full of glory." 

Christ for us — His Heart. 

The very fountain of his divine life, and 
light, and love, the very centre of his being, 
is given to his beloved ones, who are not 
only " set as a seal upon his heart," but 
taken into his heart, so that our life is hid 
there, and we dwell there in the very cen- 



FROM A BELIEVER'S GARDEN. 

tre of all safety, and power, and love, and 
glory. 

Christ for us — His Love. 

Not a passive, possible love, but outflow- 
ing, yes, outpoiirmg of the real, glowing, 
personal love of his mighty and tender 
heart. Love, not as an attribute, a quality, 
a latent force, but an acting, moving, 
reaching, touching, and grasping power. 
Love, not a cold, beautiful, far-off star, but 
a sunshine that comes and enfolds us, mak- 
ing us warm and glad, and strong and 
bright and fruitful. 

" Lovest thou me?" He says it, who 
has loved us with an everlasting love. He 
says it, who has died for us. He says it, 
who has washed us from our sins in his own 
blood. He says it, who has waited for our 
love, waited patiently all through our cold- 
njess. 

Christ for us — Himself. 

" Christ also hath loved us, and given 
himself for us." " The Son of God . . . 
loved me, and gave himself for me." Yes, 

87 



BLOSSOMS 

himself! What is the bride's true and 
central treasure? What calls forth the 
deepest, brightest, sweetest thrill of love 
and praise ? Not the bridegroom's price- 
less gifts, not the robe of his resplendent 
righteousness, not the dowry of unsearch- 
able riches, not the magnificence of the 
palace home to which he is bringing her, 
not the glory which she shall share with 
him, but Himself ! 

Purpose of Heart. 

The Bible never speaks of " good reso- 
lutions," but again and again of " pur- 
pose " (2 Tim. iii. 10). And this is what 
we want, that *' with purpose of heart" we 
should " cleave unto the Lord" (Acts xi. 
23). Have we this distinct purpose to- 
day ? Do we really mean, God helping 
us, to cleave to our King to-day ? Do not 
let us dare to go forth to the certain con- 
flicts and temptations of the day with this 
negative but real disloyalty of want of 
purpose in the matter. And " if our heart 
condemn us" (i John iii. 20), let us at 
once turn to him who says: "I have 



FROM A BELIEVER'S GARDEN. 

caused to cleave unto me the whole house 
of Israel" (Jer. xiii. ii). His grace shall 
enable us to cleave unto our King. 

Walking by Faith. 

Ask God, before you go down-stairs, for 
faith, *'the eye of the soul," so that you 
may walk all day long " as seeing him who 
is invisible." When you are tempted to 
indulge in something wrong — idleness, or 
carelessness, or selfishness — this will help 
you to give it up at once, and forsake it ; 
for how can you give way to it when your 
eye meets his? When something makes 
you afraid, this will make you brave and 
peaceful; for how can you fear anything 
when your God is so near? 

Joy of Answered Prayer. 

An answered prayer makes us glad for 
its own sake. But there is grace behind 
the gift, which is better and more gladden- 
ing than the gift itself. For which is most 
valued, the "engaged ring," or the favor 
of which it is the token? Setting aside 
judicial answers to unspiritual prayers '^Ps. 



BLOSSOMS 

cvi. 15), which an honest conscience will 
have no difficulty in distinguishing, the 
servants of the King may take it that his 
answers to their requests are proofs and 
tokens of his grace and favor (i John iii. 
21) : of his real, and present, and personal 
love to themselves individually. 

Guided as You Go. 

Give up trying to pick your way ; even 
if the " right paths" in which he leads you 
are paths that you have not known, say, 
" Even there shall thy hand lead me " (Ps. 
cxxxix. 10). Let him teach you his paths 
(Ps. XXV. 4), and ask him to make not 
your way, but " Thy way straight before my 
face" (Ps. V. 8). So shall you find the 
completeness and the sweetness of his 
guidance. For " the Lord shall guide thee 
continually " (Isa. Iviii. 1 1), *' by the springs 
of waters shall he guide " thee (Isa. xlix. 
19) ; he shall be the guide of your youth, 
and carry you even unto your old age 
(Jer. iii. 4) ; he will be your guide even 
unto death (Ps. xlviii. 12), and beyond: 
for one strain of the song of the victorious 
90 



FROM A BELIEVER'S GARDEN. 

ones that stand upon the sea of glass 
mingled with fire (Rev. xv. 2, 3) shall be: 
" Thou hast guided them in thy strength 
unto thy holy habitation" (Ex. xv. 13). 

Reflected Rays. 

If the Sun of Righteousness, the glorious 
and lovely Saviour, shines upon you, a 
little ray of his own brightness and beauty 
will be seen upon you. Sometimes we can 
see by the happy light on a face that the 
Sun is shining there; but if the Sun is 
really shining, there are sure to be some of 
the beautiful rays of holiness, love, joy, 
peace, gentleness, goodness, faith, meek- 
ness, making the life even of a little child 
very lovely. 

A Prayer Sure to be Answered. 

Many years ago a good clergyman wrote 
a tiny prayer, so short that no one could 
help remembering it, if they once heard it. 
God seemed to set that little prayer "upon 
wheels," so that it might run everywhere. 
It was printed on large cards and hung up, 
and it was printed on small ones and kept 
91 



BLOSSOMS 

in Bibles and pocket-books. It was taught 
to classes, and schools, and whole congre- 
gations, and now thousands upon thousands 
pray it constantly. It is a prayer which 
must be heard, because it asks for what 
God has promised to give ; and it asks for 
this through him whom the Father heareth 
always. It is this : " O God, give me thy 
Holy Spirit, for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen." 
Will you not pray it too? Begin this 
morning, and go on ; not just saying it, but 
praying it, till you get a full answer. For 
you are quite sure to get it ; here is God's 
own promise, " I will put my Spirit within 
you;" and he has promised it over and 
over again in other places. 

The Master's Voice. 

He says that he knows "how to speak 
a word in season to him that is weary." 
"Will he really speak to me?" says the 
little heart. Yes, really, if you will only 
watch to see what he will say to you. For 
it will be "a still, small voice," and you 
will not hear it at all if you do not listen 
for it " How will he speak to me?" If 
92 



FROM A BELIEVER'S GARDEN. 

I had something very nice to tell you, and 
instead of saying it out loud I wrote it 
down on a piece of paper and gave it you 
to look at, would not that be exactly the 
same as if I had told it you with my lips ? 
And you would take the paper eagerly, to 
see what it was that I had to say to you. 
So, to-day, when you read your Bible, 
either alone or at your Bible lesson, watch 
to see what Jesus will say to you in it. 
You will never really watch in vain. You 
will see some word that seems to come 
home to you, and that you never noticed 
so much before. Oh, listen lovingly to it, 
for that is what he says to you ! Or if you 
are really watching and wishing for a word 
from him, some sweet text will come into 
your mind, and you wonder what made 
you think of it ! That is the voice of Jesus 
speaking to your heart. Listen to it, and 
treasure it up, and follow it ; and then 
watch to see what else he will say to you. 
Say to him, " Master, say on ! " 

God's Care. 
Every day, every moment, he careth, 
93 



BLOSSOMS 

goes on caring, for you. Not only think- 
ing of you and watching you, but working 
for you ; making things come right, so that 
everything should be just the best that 
could happen to you. Not managing the 
great things, and leaving the little things to 
arrange themselves, but giving loving care 
to the least, the very least things that con- 
cern you. Even in some tiny little trouble 
which no one else seems to care about *' he 
careth;" or when every one else is too 
much taken up with other things to attend 
to you " He careth for you." 

You can never get beyond God's care, 
for it always reaches you ; you can never 
be outside of it, for it is always enfolding 
you. 

Jesus Always Near. 

How long will he be with you? Al- 
ways, " all the days ! " He hath said ; ** I 
will never leave thee." "Never" means 
really never, not for one moment. You 
cannot get beyond " never." It goes on 
all through your life, and all through God's 
great "forever." And "alway" means 
really alway, every single moment of all 
94 



FROM A BELIEVER'S GARDEN. 

your life ; so that you need never ask again, 
" Is Jesus with me now?" Of course he 
is ! The answer will always be " yes," be- 
cause he hath said, " I am with you alway." 
How safe, how sweet, how blessed ! 

Doing for Jesus. 

Our Lord Jesus Christ has given us op- 
portunities of showing whether we love 
him or not. He tells us that what we try 
to do for any one who is poor, or hungry, 
or sick, or a lonely stranger, is just the 
same as doing it to him. 

It seems to me so very kind of the Lord 
Jesus to have told us this. For he knew 
that those who really love him would want 
to do something for him, and what could 
we do for the King of glory in his glorious 
heaven ! So it was wonderfully thoughtful 
of him to give us his poor people to care 
for, and to say, if we have only been kind 
to a sick old woman or hungry little child, 
" Ye have done it unto me ! " 

Christ and Song. 

He consecrated song for us, and made 
95 



BLOSSOMS 

it a sweet and sacred thing forever, when 
he himself " sang an hymn " the very last 
thing before he went forth to consecrate 
suffering for us. That was not his last 
song. "The Lord thy God .... will 
joy over thee with singing." And the time 
is coming when he will not only sing " for 
thee " or " over thee," but with thee. He 
says he will ! " In the midst of the church 
will I sing praise unto thee." Now what 
a magnificent glimpse of joy this is ! Jesus 
himself leading the praises of his brethren,* 
and we ourselves singing not merely in 
such a chorus, but with such a leader ! If 
"singing for Jesus" is such delight here, 
what will this " singing with Jesus " be ? 
Surely, song may well be a holy thing to 
us henceforth. 

Fear Not. 

There is a " Fear not " for every possible 
case and kind of fear; so that we have 
never any answer to give when he asks, 
^^Why are ye fearful?" (Matt. viii. 26), 

* See A. Newton, on the Epistle to the Hebrews, 
chap. ii. 12, 

96 



FROM A BELIEVER'S GARDEN. 

but "we are "without excuse " (Rom. i. 20). 
It is part of his " holy covenant " that we 
should "serve him without fear" (Luke i. 
74). It is one of his " precious promises" 
that " thou shalt be stedfast, and shalt not 
fear" (Job xi. 15). It is one of the blessed 
results of his reif^n that his flock " shall 
fear no more" (Jer. xxiii. 4). It is no 
impossible thing, but the simple and nat- 
ural consequence of really seeking and 
really trusting the Lord, that he will deliver 
us not from some, but from "^//" our 
fears (Ps. xxxiv. 4). He did this for 
David; will he be less kind to you and 
me? 

True Liberty. 

"And it shall come to pass in the day 
that the Lord shall give thee rest from thy 
sorrow, and from thy fear, and from the 
hard bondage wherein thou wast made to 
serve, that thou shalt .... say, How 
hath the oppressor ceased ! " (Isa. xiv. 3, 4). 
" In that day .... his burden shall be 
taken away from off thy shoulder." But 
" that day " may be this day ! Why not ? 
" For now will I break his yoke from off 
7 97 



BLOSSOMS 

thee" (Nah. i. 13). "Where the Spirit 
of the Lord is, there is liberty" (2 Cor. iii. 
17) ; and he hath said : "Ask, and ye shall 
receive" (Matt. vii. 7). Recognize the 
anointing by faith, and then "stand fast 
therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ 
hath made us free, and be not entangled 
again with the yoke of bondage " (Gal. v. 
i) ; for "this is his commandment." Then 
you shall "walk at liberty" (Ps. cxix. 45), 
and give him the glad " offering of a free 
heart," rejoicing in his easy yoke (Matt. 
xi. 29), and (shall we not add?) "proclaim- 
ing liberty every man to his neighbor." 



" Upon thy promises I stand, 
Trusting in thee : thine own right hand 

Doth keep and comfort me ! 
My soul doth triumph in thy word ; 
Thine, thine, be all the praise, dear Lord, 
As thine the victory. 

" Love perfecteth what it begins ; 
Thy power doth save me from my sins ; 

Thy grace upholdeth me. 
This life of trust, how glad ! how sweet ! 
My need and thy great fulness meet. 
And I have all in thee. 

"Jean S. Pigott.** 

98 



FROM A BELIEVER'S GARDEN. 



No Bondage in Consecration. 

There is no bondage in consecration. 
The two things are opposites, and cannot 
co-exist, much less mingle. We should 
suspect our consecration, and come afresh 
to our great Counsellor about it, directly 
we have any sense of bondage. As long 
as we have an unacknowledged feeling of 
fidget about our account book, and a 
smothered wondeiing what and how much 
we " ^//^//z"' to give, and a hushed-up 
wishing the thing had not been put quite 
so strongly before us, depend upon it we 
have not said unreservedly, " Take my 
silver and my gold." And how can the 
Lord keep what he has not been sincerely 
asked to take ? 

If we had stood at the foot of the cross, 
and watched the tremendous payment of 
our redemption with the precious blood of 
Christ, — if w^e had seen that awful price 
told out, drop by drop, from his own dear 
patient brow and torn hands and feet, till 
it was ALL paid, and the central word of 
eternity was uttered, "// is finished J ^^ 
99 



BLOSSOMS 

should we not have been ready to say, 
"Not a mite will I zvithhold I '* 

Gifts or Grace. 

Which is greatest, gifts or grace ? Gifts 
are given " to every man according to his 
several ability." That is, we have just as 
much given as God knows we are able to 
use, and what he knows we can best use 
for him. " But unto every one of us is 
given ^r^r^ according to the measure of 
the gift of Christ." Claiming and using 
that royal measure of grace, you may, and 
can, and will do more for God than the 
mightiest intellect in the world without it. 
For which, in the clear light of his Word, 
is likely to be most effectual, the natural 
ability which at its best and fullest, with» 
out Christ, " can do nothing'*'' (observe and 
believe that word !), or the grace of our 
Almighty God and the power of the Holy 
Ghost, which is as free to you as it ever was 
to any one ? 

Training our Gifts for Jesus. 
He who made every power can use 

ICG 



FROM A BELIEVER'S GARDEN. 

every power — memory, judgment, imagina- 
tion, quickness of apprehension or insight; 
specialties of musical, poetical, oratorical, 
or artistic faculty; special tastes for rea- 
soning, philosophy, history, natural science, 
or natural history, — all these may be dedi- 
cated to him, sanctified by him, and used 
by him. Whatever he has given, he will 
use, if we will let him. 

Don't you really believe that the Holy 
Spirit is just as able to draw a soul to 
Jesus, if he will, by your whisper of the 
one word ** Conie^'' as by an eloquent 
sermon an hour long? /do! At the 
same tim^e, as it is evidently God's way to 
work through these intellects of ours, 
we have no more right to expect him 
to use a mind which we are wilfully 
neglecting, and taking no pains whatever 
to fit for his use, than I should have to ex- 
pect you to write a beautiful inscription 
with my pen, if I would not take the 
trouble to wipe it and mend it. 

A Diamond Here — A Star Yonder. 
It is wonderfully nice to light upon 

lOI 



BLOSSOMS 

something that we really never thought of 
as a possible gift to our Lord, and just to 
give it, straight away, to him. I do not 
press the matter, but I do ask my lady 
friends to give it fair and candid and 
prayerful consideration. Which do you 
really care most about — a diamond on your 
finger, or a star in the Redeemer's kingdom, 
shining forever and ever ? That is what it 
comes to, and there I leave it. 

Faithful in the Least. 

It is very possible to be fairly faithful in 
much, and yet unfaithful in that which is 
least. We may have thought about our 
gold and silver, and yet have been alto- 
gether thoughtless about our rubbish ! 
Some have a habit of hoarding away old 
garments, "pieces," remnants, and odds 
and ends generally, under the idea that 
they "will come in useful some day;" 
very likely setting it up as a kind of mild 
virtue, backed by that noxious old saying, 
" Keep it by you seven years, and you'll 
find a use for it." And so the shabby 
things get shabbier, and moth and dust 



FROM A BELIEVER'S GARDEN. 

doth corrupt, and the drawers and places 
get choked and crowded ; and meanwhile 
all this that is sheer rubbish to you, might 
be made useful at once, to a degree beyond 
what you would guess, to some poor per- 
son. 

My sister trimmed seventy or eighty hats 
every spring for several years with the con- 
tents of friends' rubbish drawers,thus reliev- 
ing dozens of poor mothers who liked their 
children to " go tidy on Sunday," and also 
keeping down finery in her Sunday-school. 
Those who literally fulfilled her request for 
" rubbish," used to marvel at the results. 

The Spirit of God must have taught 
Bezaleel's hands as well as his head, for 
he was filled with it not only that he might 
devise cunning works, but also in cutting 
of stones and carving of timber. And 
when all the women that were wise-hearted 
did spin with their hands, the hands must 
have been made skilful as well as the 
hearts made wise to prepare the beautiful 
garments and curtains. 

Why not ask him to make these hands 
of ours more handy for his service, more 
skilful in what is indicated as the " next 
103 



BLOSSOMS 

thynge *' they are to do? The "kept" 
hands need not be clumsy hands. If the 
Lord taught David's hands to war and his 
fingers to fight, will he not teach our hands, 
and fingers too, to do what he would have 
them do ? 

Finished. 

When a thing is finished, how much is 
there left to do? The question sounds too 
absurd with respect to ordinary things. We 
hardly take the trouble to answer, " Why, 
nothing, of course ! " When Jesus has 
finished the work, how much is there left for 
you to do ? Do you not see ? Nothing, 
of course ! You have only to accept that 
work as really finished, and accept his dy- 
ing declaration that it is so (2 Tim. ii. 13). 
What further assurance would you have ? 
Is not this enough ? Does your heart say, 
Yes, or No ? 

Use of Money in Shopping. 

" The silver and the gold is mine, saith 

the Lord of Hosts." Yes, every coin we 

have is literally our " Lord's money." 

Simple belief of this fact is the stepping- 

104 



FROM A BELIE PEER'S GARDEN. 

Stone to full consecration of what he has 
given us, whether much or little. 

When we have asked him to take, and 
continually trust him to keep our money, 
" shopping " becomes a different thing. 
We look up to our Lord for guidance to 
lay out his money prudently and rightly, 
and as he would have us lay it out. The 
gift or garment is selected consciously 
under his eye, and with conscious reference 
to him as our own dear Master, for whose 
sake we shall give it, or in whose service 
we shall wear it, and whose own silver or 
gold we shall pay for it, and then it is all 
right. 

Systematic Giving. 

" Upon the first day of the week let every 
one of you lay by him in store, as God hath 
prospered him." Do not say you are 
" afraid you could not keep to it." What 
has a consecrated life to do with being 
"afraid?" 

It is important to remember that there 
is no much or little in God's sight, except 
as relatively to our means and willingness. 
" For if there be first a willing mind, it is 



BLOSSOMS 

accepted according to that a man hath, and 
not according to that he hath not." He 
knows what we have not^ as well as what 
we have. He knows all about the low 
wages in one sphere, and the small allow- 
ance, or the fixed income with rising prices 
in another. 

Our wills belong either to self or to God. 
It may seem a small and rather excusable 
sin in man's sight to be self-willed, but see 
in what a category of iniquity God puts 
it! (2 Pet. ii. lo.) 

Complete in Him. 

An offered gift must be either accepted 
or refused. Can he have refused it when 
he has said, " Him that cometh to me I 
will in nowise cast out?" If not, then 
it must have been accepted. It is just the 
same process as when we came to him 
first of all, with the intolerable burden of 
our sins. There was no help for it but to 
come with them to him, and take his 
word for it that he would not and did not 
cast us out. And so coming, so believing, 
we found rest to our souls ; we found that 
1 06 



FROM A BELIEVER'S GARDEN, 

his word was true, and that his taking 
away our sins was a reality. We are not 
to look to him only to be the Author and 
Finisher of our faith, but we are to look to 
him for all the intermediate fulfilment of 
the work of faith (2 Thess. i. 11); we must 
ask him to go on fulfilling it in us, com- 
mitting even this to his power. 

For we both may and must 
Commit our very faith to him, 
Entrust to him our trust. 

Wasted Power. 

We have not a notion what an amount 
of waste of power there has been in our 
lives; we never measured out the odd 
corners and the undrained bits, and it 
never occurred to us what good fruit might 
be grown in our straggling hedgerows, nor 
how the shade of our trees has been keep- 
ing the sun from the scanty crops. And 
so, season by season, we shall be some- 
times not a little startled, yet always very 
glad, as we find that bit by bit the Master 
shows how much more may be made of 
our ground, how much more he is able to 
107 



BLOSSOMS 

make of it than we did ; and we shall be 
willing to work under him and do ex- 
actly what he points out, even if it comes 
to cutting down a shade tree or clearing 
out a ditch full of pretty weeds and wild- 
flowers. 

Look at Your Hand. 

It may seem an odd idea, but a simple 
glance at one's hand, with the recollec- 
tion, *^ This hand is not mine ; it has been 
given to Jesus, and it must be kept for 
Jesus,'* may sometimes turn the scale in a 
doubtful matter, and be a safeguard from 
certain temptations. Can you deliberately 
hold in it books of a kind which you 
know perfectly well, by sadly repeated ex- 
perience, lead you farther from instead of 
nearer to him ? books which must and do 
fill your mind with those "other things" 
which, entering in, choke the word? 
books which you would not care to read 
at all, if your heart were burning within 
you at the coming of his feet to bless you ? 
Next time any temptation of this sort ap- 
proaches, just look at your hand! 
io8 



FROM A BELIEVER'S GARDEN. 

Sleepless Nights. 

If we could always say, night after 
night, " I will both lay me down in peace 
and sleep," receiving in full measure the 
Lord's quiet gift to his beloved, we should 
not learn the disguised sweetness of this 
special word for the wakeful ones. When 
the wearisome nights come, it is hushing 
to know that they are appointed. But this 
is something nearer and closer-bringing, 
something individual and personal; not 
only an appointment, but an act of our 
Father : " Thou /widest mine eyes waking." 
It is not that he is merely not giving 
us sleep; it is not a denial, but a different 
dealing. Every moment that the tired 
eyes are sleepless, it is because our Father 
is holding them waking. It seems so 
natural to say, *' How I wish I could go 
to sleep!" Yet can we say, "With my 
soul have I desired thee in the night?" 
and, " By night on my bed I sought him 
whom my soul loveth ? " Then he will 
fulfil that desire; the very wakefulness 
should be recognized as his direct dealing, 
and we may say, " Thou hast visited me in 
109 



BLOSSOMS 

the night." It is not an angel that comes 
to you as to Elijah, and arouses you from 
slumber, but the Lord of angels. He 
watches while you sleep, and when you 
are awake you are still with him who died 
for you, that whether you wake or sleep, 
both literally and figuratively, you should 
live together with him. 

Prayer for Others. 

We must not yield to the idea that, be- 
cause we are feeble members, doing no 
great work, our prayers " won't make 
much difference." It may be that this is 
the very reason why the Lord keeps us in 
the shade, because he hath need of us 
(though we feel no better than an " ass's 
colt ") for the work of intercession. Many 
of us only learn to realize the privilege of 
being called to this by being called apart 
from all other work. When this is the 
case, let us simply and faithfully do it, 
" lifting up holy hands, without wrath and 
doubting," blessing his name who pro- 
vides this holy and beautiful service for 
those who " by night stand in the house 
no 



FROM A BELIEVER'S GARDEN, 

of the Lord. See how wonderfully St. 
Paul valued the prayers of others. He 
distinctly expresses this to every church 
but one to whom he wrote. Would he 
have asked their prayers so fervently if he 
thought it would not make much differ- 
ence? " 

Let us intercede " while we have time." 
" The night Cometh, when no man can 
work." Those for whom we might be 
praying to-day may be beyond the reach 
of prayer to-morrow. Or our own day of 
prayer may have passed; for the only in- 
tercession that we have ever heard from 
the other side was in vain — never granted. 

Jesus our Great Intercessor. 

He ever liveth to make intercession for 
us, and so while you have been silent 
to him, he has been praying for you. 
If his hand has been upon you so that you 
could not pray, why need you be mourn- 
ing over this, when your merciful and faith- 
ful High Priest has been offering up the pure 
and sweet and costly incense of his own 
intercession ? But if your heart condemns 
III 



BLOSSOMS 

you, and you know you gave way to 
indolent coldness when you might have 
roused yourself to more prayer, will it not 
touch you to recollect that, in his wonder- 
ful long-suffering, Jesus has been praying 
instead ! 



Jesus THE Way. 

There is only one way of coming near 
or being made near, but that way is open 
for you. Not into the outer court of re- 
ligious profession, but " into the holiest," 
into the reality of most sacred nearness to 
ypur Lord, you may enter " by the blood 
of Jesus." The moment you claim by 
faith the power of that precious blood, — 
the moment you let your great High Priest 
put it upon you, that moment " ye who 
sometimes were far off are made nigh 
by the blood of Christ." Then, having 
this High Priest, and having this one 
blessed and unfailing means of access, " let 
us draw near with a true heart, in full as- 
surance of faith." 

112 



FROM A BELIEVER'S GARDEN. 

Jesus the Truth. 

" The words which I speak unto you, 
they are spirit, and they are hfe " — quick- 
ening and continually life-giving words. 
We want to be permeated with them ; 
we want them to dwdl in us richly, to 
be the inspiration of our whole lives, 
the very music of our spirits, whose me- 
lodious overflow may be glory to God 
and goodwill to man. Jesus himself 
has given us this quick and powerful 
word of God, and our responsibility is 
tremendous. He has told us distinctly 
what to do as to it ; he has said, " Search ! " 
Now, are we substituting a word of our 
own, and merely reading them ? He did 
not say, "Read them," but ''Search!'' 
and it is a most serious thought for many 
a comfortable daily reader of the Bible, that 
if they are only reading and not searching, 
they are d^tinctly living in disobedience 
to one of his plainest commands. What 
wonder if they do not " grow thereby ! " 

Earnests of Blessing. 

God keeps writing a commentary on 
8 113 



BLOSSOMS 

his word in the volume of our own 
experience. That is, in so far as we put 
that volume into his hands, and do not 
think to fill it with our own scribble. We 
are not to undervalue or neglect this com- 
mentary, but to use it as John Newton did, 
when he wrote — 



*' His love in time past forbids me to think 
He'll leave me at last in trouble to sink ; 
Each sweet Ebenezer I have in review- 
Confirms his good pleasure to help me quite 
through." 



The keywords of what the Spirit writes in 
it are, " He hath," and therefore " He 
will." Every record of love bears the 
great signatures, " I am the Lord, I change 
not , " " Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, 
and to-day, and forever." Every hitherto 
of grace and help is a henceforth of more 
grace and more help. Every experience 
of the realities of faith widens the horizon 
of the possibilities of faith. Every real- 
ized promise is the stepping-stone to one 
yet unrealized. 

114 



FROM A BELIEVER'S GARDEN. 

No Misunderstanding God's Promises. 

He who knows our little faith never 
gives an isolated promise. He leaves us 
no chance of overlooking or misunder- 
standing any one, except by wilful neglect, 
because it is always confirmed in other 
parts of his word. So he has given the 
same strong consolation in other terms. 
" The Lord shall preserve thee from all 
evil" (do you believe that P). "There 
shall no evil happen to the just." " In 
seven (troubles) there shall no evil touch 
thee." Then see how he individualized 
it to Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, 
even in the burning fieiy furnace, " They 
have no. hurt ; " to Daniel among the 
lions, "They have not hurt me;" to St. 
Paul among turbulent men with a care- 
nought governor, " No man' shall set on 
thee to hurt thee." We are not likely to 
be more exposed to " hurt " than these, 
and we have the same God, "who keep- 
eth his promise forever." He is the " wall 
of fire round about" us; and what forti- 
fication so impenetrable — nay, so unap- 
proachable! And "he that toucheth you 
115 



BLOSSOMS 

toucheth the apple of his eye " — the very 
least touch is felt by the Lord, who loves 
us and is mighty to save ! Well may he 
say, "And who is he that will harm you ? " 

No Place for Reasoning about God's 
Promises. 

As long as we are reasoning about a 
promise, we never know its reality. It is 
not God's way. It is the humble who 
hear thereof and are glad. Have we not 
found it so? Did we ever receive the 
powerful fulfilment of any promise so long 
as we argued and reasoned, whether with 
our own hearts or with others, and said, 
" How can these things be ? " Has it 
not always been, that we had to lay down 
our arms and accept God's thought and 
God's way ifistead of our own ideas, and 
be willing that he should " speak the word 
only," and believe it as little children 
believe our promises? Then, never till 
then, the promise and the privilege be- 
came ours not only in potentiality but in 
actuality. Now, how is it that we do not 
yet understand, and apply- the same princi- 
11*6 



FROM A BELIEVER'S GARDEN. 

pie to every promise or privilege which as 
yet we see only afar off? It is the old 
way and the only way: "Who through 
faith . . . obtained promises." 

God's Will is Love. 

Now we not only see his justice and 
mercy flowing in an undivided stream from 
the cross of Christ, but we see that they 
never were divided, though the strange 
distortions of the dark, false gloss of sin 
made them appear so, but that both are 
but emanations of God's holy love. Then 
having known and believed God's holy 
love, we see further that his will is not a 
separate thing, but only love in action; 
love being the primary essence of his 
being, and all the other attributes, manifes- 
tations and combinations of that ineffable 
essence, for God is love. Then this will 
of God which has seemed in old far-off 
days a stern and fateful power, is seen to 
be only love energized; love saying, " I 
will." And when once we really grasp 
this (hardly so much by faith as by love 
itself), the will of God cannot be other- 
117 



BLOSSOMS 

wise than acceptable, for it is no longer a 
question of trusting that somehow or other 
there is a hidden element of love in it, but 
of understanding that it is love ; no more 
to be dissociated from il than the power 
of the sun's rays can be dissociated from 
their light and warmth. 

A Fixed Heart. 

"His heart is fixed." Whose heart? 
An angel ? A saint in glory ? No ! Simply 
the heart of the man that feareth the 
Lord, and delighteth greatly in his com- 
mandments. Therefore yours and mine, 
as God would have them be; just the 
normal idea of a God-fearing heart, noth- 
ing extremely and hopelessly beyond at- 
tainment. 

** Fixed, trusting in the Lord." Here 
is the means of the fixing-trust. He 
works the trust in us by sending the Holy 
Spirit to reveal God in Christ to us as 
absolutely, infinitely worthy of our trust. 
When we " see Jesus " by spirit-wrought 
faith, we cannot but trust him; we distrust 
our hearts more truly than ever before, but 
n8 



FRO 31 A BELIEVER'S GARDEN. 

we trust our Lord entirely, because we 
trust him only. For, entrusting our trust 
to him, we know that he is, able to keep 
that which we commit (i. e. entrust) to 
him. It is his own way of winning and 
fixing our hearts for himself. Is it not a 
beautiful one ? 

Leaving All with God. 

"Do thou for me." The Psalmist does 
not say what he wanted God to do for 
him. He leaves it open. So this most 
restful prayer is left open for all perplexed 
hearts to appropriate " according to their 
several necessities." And so we leave it 
open for God to fill up in his own way. 

Only a trusting heart can pray this 
prayer at all : the very utterance of it is 
an act of faith. We could not ask any 
one whom we did not know intimately and 
trust implicitly to "do" for us, without 
even suggesting what. 

Only a self-emptied heart can pray it. 

It is when we have come to the end of our 

own resources, or, rather, come to see that 

we never had any at all, that we are will- 

119 



BLOSSOMS 

ing to accept the fact that we can " da 
nothing," and to let God do everything 
for us. 

Only a loving heart can pray it. For 
nobody likes another to take him and 
his affairs in hand, and " do " for him, 
unless that other is cordially loved. We 
might submit to it, but v^e should not like 
it, and certainly should not seek it. 

God Understands Us. 

Even if others "daily mistake" your 
words, he understands your thought, and 
is not this infinitely better ? He himself, 
your ever-loving, ever-present Father, un- 
derstands. He understands perfectly just 
what and just when others do not. Not 
your actions merely, but your thought — 
the central self which no words can reveal 
to others. "All my desire is before thee." 
He understands how you desired to do 
the right thing when others thought you 
did the wrong thing. He understands 
how his poor weak child wants to please 
him, and secretly mourns over grieving 
him. " Thou understandest " seems to go 

I20 



FROM A BELIEVER'S GARDEN. 

even a step further than the great comfort 
of "Thou knowest." "His understand- 
ing is infinite." 

Fulness of Joy. 

Wine is the symbol of earthly joy; 
and who that has had but one sip of the 
love of Christ does not know this " royal 
wine," this true " wine of the kingdom," 
to be better than the best joy that the 
world can give ! How much more, then, 
when deeper and fuller draughts are the 
daily portion, as we " follow on to know " 
the love "wliich passeth knowledge." 
It is the privilege not of a favored few, 
but of " all saints," to comprehend some- 
thing of what is incomprehensible. 

In his love and in his pity he redeemed 
us; in the same love he bears us and 
carries us all the day long. He " loveth 
at all times," and that includes this present 
moment ; now, while your eye is on this 
page, his eye of love is looking on you, 
and the folds of his banner of love are 
overshadowing you. 



blossoms 

Abiding Joy. 

Who that has known anything of joy in 
the Lord but has asked, " But will it last ? " 
And why has the question been so often 
the very beginning of its not lasting ? Be- 
cause we have either asked it of ourselves 
or of others, and not of the Lord only. 
His own answers to this continually recur- 
ring qu>estion are so different from the 
cautions, chilling, saddening ones which 
his children so often give. They are ab- 
solute, full, reiterated. We little realize 
how unscriptural we are when we meet 
his good gift of joy to ourselves or to 
others with a doubtful, and therefore faith- 
less, "T;^ it lasts ! " 

" To the law and to the testimony," O 
happy Christian ! there you shall find true 
and abundant answer to your only shadow 
on the brightness of the joy. So long as 
you believe your Lord's word about it, so 
long it will last. 

Jesus our Surety. 

Jesus Christ is surety for us. He, our 
Elder Brother, undertakes to bring us 

122 



FROM A BELIEVER'S GARDEA. 

safely to the house of his Father and our 
Father. He undertakes lo present us be- 
fore the presence of his glory. We are 
in his hand, and from his hand God will 
require us and receive us. And God, who 
so loves his children, has trusted the Lord 
Jesus to do this. He has given us to him, 
and he has accepted Jesus Christ as our 
surety. 

Now, if God has trusted him, will not 
you trust him too? What! hesitate about 
trusting Jesus? Who else could you 
trust ? Who else could undertake to bring 
you safe to heaven? Benjamin might 
possibly have found his way by himself 
from Egypt to Canaan ; but never, never 
could you find the way by yourself from 
earth to heaven; and never, never could 
any one but the Lord Jesus bring you 
there. 

Jesus our Forerunner. 

This is what the Lord Jesus Christ has 

done for us. He has gone before, in front 

of, the great army of the living God who 

have crossed or have yet to cross the river of 

123 



BLOSSOMS 

death. His blessed feet have passed that 
river, and made the crossing easy for us, 
so that the dark waters shall never over- 
flow^ one of us, not even a little child. 

He has gone before us into the beautiful 
land to prepare the many mansions for us. 
He is there, waiting for us, ready to give 
us his own most sweet and gracious wel- 
come to his own fair country, as soon as 
our feet have crossed the river. 

Rules for Doing the King's Business. 

We find four rules for doing the King's 
business, in his word. We are to do it, — 
first, " Heartily ; " second, " Diligently ; " 
third, '-Faithfully;" fourth, ''Speedily:' 
Let us ask him to give us the grace of 
energy to apply them this day to whatever 
he indicates as our part of his business, re- 
membering that he said, " I 77iust be about 
my Father's business." 

Especially in that part of it which is be- 
tween himself and ourselves alone, let us 
never delay. Oh, the incalculable bless- 
ings that we have already lost by putting 
off our own dealings with our King ! Ab» 
124 



FROM A BELIEVER'S GARDEN. 

igail first "made haste" to meet David 
for mere safety ; soon afterwards, she 
again " hasted and arose and went after 
the messengers of David, and became his 
wife." 

Our Need of a King. 

I will be thy King. He knows our need 
of a king. He knows the hopeless anarchy, 
not only of a world, but of a heart, *' without 
a king." Is there a more desolate cry than 
" We have no king? " — none to reverence 
and love, none to obey, none to guide and 
protect us and rule over us, none to keep 
us in that truest freedom of whole-hearted 
loyalty. Have we not felt that we really 
want a strong hand over our hearts ? that 
having our own way is not so good as 
another's way, if only that other is one to 
whom our hearty and entire confidence and 
allegiance can be and are given ? Has 
there not been an echo in our souls of the 
old cry, " Give me a king? " — a cry that 
nothing can still but this Divine promise, 
"/will be thy King!" 

125 



BLOSSOMS 

What shall I render to my glorious King ? 
I have but that which I receive from thee. 
And what I give thou givest back to me. 
Transmuted by thy touch ; each worthless thing 
Changed to the preciousness of gem or gold, 
And by thy blessing multiplied a thousandfold. 

The Power of the Word. 

By the word we shall " grow in grace." 
The beginning of grace in our souls was 
by the same ; for it is written, " Of his 
own will begat he us with the word of 
truth;" "Being born again, ... by the 
word of God." At every step it is the 
same word which develops the spiritual 
life. The young man shall " cleanse his 
way" by it. The entrance of it giveth 
light and understanding. The result of 
hiding it in our hearts is, that we " might 
not sin against rhee ; " and how often by 
his word has he " withheld thee from sin« 
ning against me ! " Again and again we 
have said, "Thy word hath quickened 
me." For it comes to us " not in word 
only, but in power and in the Holy Ghost, 
and in much assurance." It is " able to 
make thee wise unto salvation," and its 
intended effects of reproof, correction, in- 
126 



FROM A BELIEVER'S GARDEN. 

struction in righteousness, rise to what 
would seem a climax of growth, *' that the 
man of God may be perfect, throughly 
furnished unto all good works." And 
yet there is a still more glorious result of 
this " word of God, which effectually 
worketh also in you that believe ; " for by 
"his divine power" "are given unto us 
exceeding great and precious promises, 
that by these ye might be partakers of the 
divine nature." This is indeed the climax, 
for what can rise beyond this most mar- 
vellous effect of this blessed means of 
growth in grace ! 

Bearing Christ's Banner. 

Then what is your banner, and what are 
you doing with it ? For if you are among 
"them that fear" God, he has given you 
a banner " that it may be displayed." Is 
yours furled up and put away in a corner, 
so that nobody sees it or knows of it ? Or 
are you trying to be a brave little standard- 
bearer of Jesus Christ, carrying his flag, so 
that the sweet breezes of his Spirit may 
lift its bright folds, and show its golden 
127 



BLOSSOMS 

motto? That motto, I think, is " Love.'* 
For we are told that his banner over us is 
love. Are you displaying it, showing 
your love to him by your love to others ? 
showing the power of his love over you 
by your sweet, happy temper, and by try- 
ing to please him always? The little 
hand that carries Christ's banner through 
his war will carry it also in his triumph ; 
the little hand that tries to unfurl it bravely 
now will wave it when his glorious reign 
begins and his blessed kingdom is come. 
Then, " in the name of our God we will 
set up our banners " now ! 

I AM Thine. 

" I am thine '^ means, " Truly I am thy 
servant." I am one of thy " dear chil- 
dren." I am thy chosen soldier. I am 
thy ransomed one. I am thy " own sheep." 
I am thy witness. I am thy friend. And 
all these are but amens to his own conde- 
scending declarations. He says we are all 
these, and we have only to say, " Yes, 
Lord, so I am." Why should we ever 
contradict him ? <* I am thine, save me ! " 
128 



FROM A BELIEVER'S GARDEN. 

And ** he will save, he will rejoice over 
thee with joy ; he will rest in his love." 

" Not your own ! " but his ye are. 
Who hath paid a price untold 

For your life, exceeding far 
All earth's store of gems and gold. 

With the precious blood of Christ, 

Ransom-treasure all unpriced. 

Full redemption is procured. 

Full salvation is assured. 

*' Not your own ! " but his by right. 

His peculiar treasure now, 
Fair and precious in his sight, 

Purchased jewels for his brow. 
He will keep what thus he sought. 
Safely guard the dearly bought, 
Cherish that which he did choose, 
Always love and never lose. 



Come and See. 

When Jesus had found Philip, Philip 
knew that he had found him. And the 
next thing to knowing that " we have found 
him " is to find some one else, and say, 
" Come and see ! " I say it now to you, 
dear friend, known or unknown. 

But what is it we are so burningly eager 
for you to see ? Very likely you suppose 
129 



BLOSSOMS 

it is just that we have a certain set of views 
that we have taken up, and we want you 
to hold the same. You think it is merely 
that we w^ant to bring you over to our 
opinions, and that we want to have the 
satisfaction of getting you to agree with 
us ! Oh, how wide of the mark ! It is no 
such thing. We are not speaking of what 
we think, but " we speak that we do 
know, and testify that we have seen." We 
have seen by faith the only sight that is 
worth gazing upon, the sight that satisfies 
the angels, the sight that is enough for the 
joy and satisfaction of immortal vision 
throughout eternity. One thing we know, 
that, whereas we were blind, now we see. 

We see Jesus, as our Lord and our God. 

We see him as the very Saviour we 
need, and the very Friend we craved. 

We see him as " the Son of God, who 
loved me and gave himself for me." 

We see him wounded for our trans- 
gressions, and bruised for our iniquities; 
our Substitute and our Sin-bearer. 

We see him, too, crowned with glory 
and honor, and we rejoice in his glory and 
beauty ; we make our boast of him. 
130 



FROM A BELIEVER'S GARDEN. 

If you say to us, *' What is thy Beloved 
more than another beloved?" we reply, 
*' My Beloved is the chiefest among ten 
thousand. Yea, he is altogether lovely." 

Escape for thy Life. 

** Escape for thy life ; look not behind 
thee, neither stay thou in all the plain." 
It is the old story of 

*' If you tarry till you're better, 
You will never come at all." 

I do not know any one promise in all 
the Bible for the lingerers. And if you 
put yourself out of the sphere of God's 
promises, what have you to found any hope 
at all upon ? 

*' Tarry not ! " Oh, if I could but reach 
you and rouse you ! 

"And if I care 
For one unknown, oh how much more doth he ! " 

For one who perishes through straight- 
forward refusal, there are probably thou- 
sands who perish through putting off. 
131 



BLOSSOMS 

<* How shall we escape if we " refuse — ^no, 
if we merely " neglect — so great salva- 
tion?" 

Yet there is room ! The Lamb's bright hall of 

song, 
With its fair glory, beckons thee along. 

Yet there is room ! Still open stands the gate. 
The gate of love ; it is not yet too late. 

Pass in, pass in ! That banquet is for thee ; 
That cup of everlasting love is free. 

Ere night that gate may close, and seal thy doom ; 
Then the last, low, long cry, — " No room, no 
room ! " H. Bonar. 



You Cannot Do Without Him. 

You cannot do without him ! 

There is no other name 
By which you ever can be saved, — 

No way, no hope, no claim ! 
Without him — everlasting loss 

Of love, and life, and light ! 
Without him — everlasting woe, 

And everlasting night. 

But with him — oh ! with Jesus ! — 

Are any words so blest ? 
With Jesus — everlasting joy 

And everlasting rest ! 
132 



FROM A BELIEVER'S GARDEN, 

With Jesus — all the empty heart 

Filled with his perfect love ! 
With Jesus — perfect peace below. 

And perfect bliss above ! 

Why should you do without him ? — 

It is not yet too late ; 
He has not closed the day of grace. 

He has not shut the gate. 
He calls you ! — hush ! he calls you ! — 

He would not have you go 
Another step without him. 

Because he loves you so. 

What Does "Come" Mean? 

If you could see the Lord Jesus stand- 
ing there, right before you, and you heard 
him say, " Come ! " would you say, " What 
does *come' mean?" And if the room 
were dark, so that you could only hear 
and not see, would it make any difference ? 
Would you not turn instantly towards the 
*' Glorious Voice ? " Would you not, in 
heart, and will, and intention, instanta- 
neously obey it? — that is, if you believed 
it to be himself. For " he that cometh to 
God must believe that he is." 

Will you not come to him for life ? 
Why will ye die, oh why? 



BLOSSOMS 

He gave his life for you, for you ! 
The gift is free, the word is true ! 
Will you not come? oh, why will you die? 



Will you not come to him for peace — 
Peace through his cross alone ? 

He shed his precious blood for you ; 

The gift is free, the word is true ! 
He is our Peace I oh, is he your own? 



Will you not come to him for all ? 

Will you not " taste and see? " 
He wants to give it all to you ; 
The gifts are free, the words are true ! 

Jesus is calling, " Come unto me I " 



To Him That Hath Shall be Given. 

He that spared not his own Son, — 
there is the entirely incontrovertible fact 
of what he hath done : ** shall he not with 
him also freely give us all things," — there 
is the inspired conclusion of what he will 
do. " Having loved his own which were 
in the world, he loved them unto the end." 
"He which hath begun a good work in 
you will perform it until the day of Jesus 
Christ." For how true is the type, both 
134 



FROM A BELIEVER'S GARDEN. 

as to each individual temple of the Holy 
Ghost, and " all the building that groweth 
unto an holy temple in the Lord : " — 
" The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the 
foundation of this house, his hands shall 
also finish it," — " His own house, whose 
house are we." Our Lord Jesus Christ 
indorses it in the very amen of his great 
prayer : *' I /lave declared unto them thy 
name, and zcfz'/l declare it." Only let us 
simply receive and believe what he shows 
us and tells us, and then to every Natha- 
nael who comes to him, he will slay, 
*' Because I said unto thee, I saw thee un- 
der the fig-tree, believest thou ? thou shalt 
see greater things than these." Then we 
shall have, personally and indeed, *' show- 
ers of blessing." 



Unto him that hath thou givest 

Ever more abundantly ; 
Lord, I live because thou livest, 

TJierefore give more life to me. 
Therefore speed me in the race. 
Therefore let me grow in grace. 



135 



BLOSSOMS 

Delight in the Lord. 

" Delight thyself also in the Lord ; and he shall 
give thee the desires of thy heart." — Ps. xxxvii. 4. 

One often hears this promise quoted 
without its conditional precept ; but we 
have no right to put asunder anything that 
God has joined together. Every heart 
has desires, but not even every Christian 
heart delights itself in the Lord. This is 
the reason of the great wail of unfulfilled 
desire — the very howl, one might say, 
which makes a howling wilderness of this 
fair world. 

It stands to reason; if our delight is 
absolutely and entirely in the Lord, all 
our desires will be not only " before him," 
but the whole " desire of our soul " will be 
concentrated upon him, radiating from 
that centre along the bright rays of his 
" good and perfect and acceptable will." 

Oh, blessed life ! — the heart at rest 

When all without tumultuous seems — . 
That trusts a higher will, and deems 

That higher will, not mine, the best. 

Oh, blessed life ! — heart, mind, and soul. 

From self-born aims and wishes free, 

136 



FROM A BELIEVER'S GARDEN. 

In all at one with Deity, 
And loyal to the Lord's control. 

W. T. Matson. 

Bkssed is the man that feareth the Lord, 
that dehghteth greatly in his command- 
ments. — Fs. cxii. I. 

The Lord's Garden. 

*What is man, that thou shouldest set 
thine heart upon him ? ' Think of that 
ceaseless setting of his heart upon us, care- 
less and forgetful children as we have 
been ! And then think of those other 
words, none the less literally true because 
given under a figure : ' I, the Lord, do 
keep it; I zvill water it every inoment.^ 



137 



INDEX. 



Note 7 

Preface 5 

Abiding Joy 122 

Bearing Christ's Banner 127 

Believers Filled ere they Overflow 47 

Blessings, Earnests of, 113 

Cherishing, The Lord's 27-30 

Careful and Loving 28 

Constant and Everlasting 29 

Patient and Gentle 27 

The Believer's Portion 30 

Christ and Song 95 

Christ for Us 82-85 

Himself 87 

His Feet 83 

Hands 82 

Heart 86 

Lips 84 

Love 87 

Voice 83 

Wealth 84 

Will 86 

Treasures of Wisdom, etc 85 

Christ's Banner, Bearing 127 

Come 66 

and See 129 

139 



INDEX. 

Come After Jesus 68 

With Jesus 69 

The Bride Says 67 

What Does it Mean? 133 

Coming Continual 70 

Complete in Him 106 

Consecration, No Bondage in 99 

Delight in the Lord 136 

Diamond Here, or a Star Yonder loi 

Disappointing the Love of Jesus 71 

Doing for Jesus 95 

Escape for thy Life .-. 131 

Faith, the Key to Unsearchable Riches 15 

The Lord Waits For 14 

Faithful in the Least. ...» 102 

Fear Not 96 

Finished 104 

Forgiveness, Immediate 54 

Sin Blotted Out 55 

Forgotten 55 

Fulness of Joy 121 

Garden, The Lord's 137 

Gifts for Jesus, Training our 100 

of God, Measure of our Gifts to Others... 39 

or Grace 100 

Glor^'- of Jesus Ever Fresh 51 

our, Never Fresh 51 

God, our Help at all Times 73 

in all Things 72 

Understands Us 129 

God's Care 93 

Hand Upon us as a Tuner's 33 

140 



/ 



INDEX. 

God's Hand When Heaviest is Nearest 35 

Love, is it Written on our Hearts ? 56 

God's Promises, Not to be Misunderstood 115 

Not to be Reasoned About... 116 

Revelation of Himself. 30-33 

by His Spirit 30 

Attributes 32 

Son 33 

in His Providence 31 

Word 30 

Will is Love 117 

Grace of Jesus Ever Fresh 50 

Guided as You Go 90 

Hand, Look at Your 108 

Harvest, The — Its Laborers 41 

Overseer 41 

Heart, A Fixed 118 

I am Thine 128 

Jesus Always Near 94 

His Grace Ever Fresh 50 

Knows our Strength 11 

the Way 10 

Leads Safely 9 

Softly 12 

Our Forerunner 123 

Great Intercessor iii 

Surety 122 

Praying For 46, 47 

Saves to Uttermost 63 

Source of Freshness 49 

The Truth 113 

The Way 112 

Want of, Want of Freshness 49 

141 



INDEX. 

Jesus Was Led Roughly 13 

You Cannot Do Without Him 132 

Joy Abiding 122 

Fulness of. 121 

of Answered Prayer 89 

King, Jesus Himself our 78 

Loyalty to our 78 

Our Indwelling 77 

Our Need of a 125 

Rules for Doing Business of. 124 

Servants of the 80 

Soldiers of the 80 

Subjects of the .- 79 

The Word of the 81 

Leaving All With God 119 

Liberty, True 97 

Love of Jesus, Are we Drawn? 57 

If so, Token 

of His Love 58 
Ifso, we Must 

Follow 58 

If so, we 
Reach Se- 
cret of His 
Presence.... 59 

Do we Love Him? 57 

Lord, The, Silent in His Love 23 

Marching Orders, Addressed to Me ! 35 

By Whom Given 37 

Go! 35 

Must I Go? 36 

Volunteers Wanted 37 

Where to Go.... 41 

142 



INDEX. 

Master's Voice, The 92 

Mediator With God, Jesus our 26 

Missions, Praying for, Certainty of Answer... 46 

Duty 45 

Frequency 45 

Moments 72 

Money in Shopping, Use of. 104 

Motive of Believer 60 

Need, Jesus our Constant 26 

Nights, Sleepless 109 

Peace of Christ 4 59 

Power Bestowed on our Master 38 

Its Disposal.... 38 

Its Exercise... 38 

of the Word 126 

Wasted 107 

Prayer Answered, Joy of. 89 

for Others no 

Sure to be Answered, a 91 

Praying for Jesus 46 

Because we Love Him 47 

Proof of Christ's Ability to Save 64 

Purpose of Heart 88 

Reason Why Jesus was Led Roughly 13 

Reflected Rays 91 

Roughly, Jesus was Led 13 

Rules for Speaking Against Wrong-doing 76 

Safely, Jesus Leads 9 

Salvation 65 

Sharing our Saviour's Sorrow 62 

Sick One's Sympathizer, Jesus the , 25 

Silence, Refreshment of. i8 



INDEX. 

Silence, Response to 19 

Sinner's Friend, Jesus the.. 24 

Softly, Jesus Leads 12 

Source oi Unfailing Freshness 49-51 

Speaking Evil 74 

Spirit will not Always Strive 70 

Star Yonder, a, A Diamond Here loi 

Strength, Jesus Knows our 11 

Stricken and Smitten 61 

Submission, Fruition of Unreserved 17 

Submission to the Will of the Lord, Unreserved 15 

Sufferings of Jesus — Manifold 52 

How Little we are Moved 

by Them...... 53 

Systematic Giving 105 

Talking Concerning the Kingdom 44 

from the Heart 44 

Its Range 42 

Its Subject 43 

Tried One's Trust, Jesus the 25 

To Him That Hath Shall be Given 134 

Walking by Faith 89 

Way, Jesus Knows the 10 

the 112 

What Does ** Come " Mean 133 

Word, Dew of, Distils in Darkness 21 

Drops 21 

Invisible yet Refreshing 20 

It is Refreshing 20 

Silent 20 

Power of the 126 

You Cannot Do Without Him 132 

144 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Nov.JOOS 

PreservationTechnoIogies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 



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